{"id":11924,"date":"2012-05-22T08:15:13","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T12:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=11924"},"modified":"2012-05-22T08:15:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T12:15:41","slug":"wake-county-tightens-tnr-ordinance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2012\/05\/22\/wake-county-tightens-tnr-ordinance\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake County Tweaks Proposed TNR Ordinance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wake County Commissioners continued to discuss adding a Trap-Neuter-Return<\/a><\/span><\/span> option to the county’s animal control ordinance Monday. While commissioners seem to have agreed to include the option, they have not yet finalized the ordinance’s wording.<\/p>\n

The current policy requires animal control officers who are responding to a feral cat complaint to trap the cat and bring it to the Wake County Animal Shelter. The cat is held there for three days in case officers accidentally trapped a lost pet. After the three-day hold, the cat is put down. Because feral cats are not socialized, they are considered unadoptable.<\/p>\n

Adding the TNR program would allow residents to decide if they want animal control to pick up a feral cat or have a nonprofit group trap the cat, spay or neuter it and then return it back to its colony. The program would be a minimal cost to the county because the cat advocate groups would take on the TNR responsibility.<\/p>\n

While county officials have been working very closely with those in favor of TNR, there have been some sticking points to the law’s wording.<\/p>\n

County staff want to include a mandatory registration for the caretakers of feral cat colonies so someone could be notified if there is a problem. Cat advocates argued the requirement should be encouraged, but not mandatory, because it puts an extra burden on caretakers who already feel intimated by animal control.<\/p>\n

Commissioners also discussed a requirement that, if called, an animal control officer would take a cat in. Advocates want to give the officer the flexibility to either bring the cat in or call a TNR group, especially if the cat had a clipped ear, which would indicate the animal had been vaccinated and neutered.<\/p>\n

Commissioners discussed some compromises, including making registration encouraged, but added that any unregistered colony would be picked up in the case of a problem. Cats with clipped ears will not be picked up by animal control and that the term \u201cferal\u201d will be included in the county’s definition of community cat.<\/p>\n

Commissioners will vote on a final version of the ordinance at their next meeting June 4.<\/p>\n

Panhandling Ordinance Changed<\/strong>
\nMinor changes are coming to the county’s panhandling ordinance following a six-month review of the policy.<\/p>\n

The law, which went into effect Dec. 1, requires panhandlers to obtain a permit before soliciting. Panhandlers can only solicit donations from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and not within 100 feet from an ATM or bank. They cannot give false information, cannot approach groups of three people or more and cannot ask for donations from drivers. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The seven-day permit will now be extended to six months. Panhandlers will no longer have to show a photo identification or a Social Security card to obtain a permit. But they must still show an acceptable form of identification. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wake County commissioners continue their discussions about a trap-neuter-return option for the county’s animal control ordinance and extended the panhandling permit time to six months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,15],"tags":[524,750,539,749],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}