Dr. Julie Levy on what you can do to get local animal control agencies and municipal governments on board with programs to neuter community cats and return them to their habitats, instead of killing them.

One of the most frequent questions we hear from cat advocates is how to get their local governments and animal control agencies to agree to neuter community cats and return them to their habitats, instead of killing them.

In our recent webcast on shelter-neuter-return (SNR) programs, attendees were able to ask that question of the panel. It was answered by Julie Levy, DVM, PhD, DACVIM, Director of Maddie's^® Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida.

Among her tips? Don't assume it's true if you're told such programs are illegal in your area:

The first thing to do, though, is to actually pull a copy of the law and make sure that is what it really says. Because we have repeatedly found that law enforcement agencies and animal control agencies are working a lot of times off of tradition or off internal policy that is not actually legislated in local laws.

See and hear her complete response here, and find out how to make community cat lifesaving happen in your town, too!