Por Redaccion The Avilés City Council will have a program for the management of cat colonies that live on the streets
02 Apr. 2025
The plan, which aims to involve citizens and recruit volunteers, includes a registry where each animal would be identified and have sanitary control.
The Avilés City Council will have a program for the management of feline colonies that are distributed throughout the city, with the objective of regulating the conditions for their care and the rules of action with the hundreds of cats that live freely and depend, mainly, on the resources that neighbors provide them with, voluntarily or involuntarily, for their survival.
Therefore, voluntary citizen participation is sought to guarantee the protection and well-being of these felines, thus complying with the animal welfare law, while also contributing to keeping the areas where these animals live clean and orderly.
Through this program, necessary measures will be adopted, based on the resources available to the City Council, and collaborations could be established with any entity that could participate in the planned issues, including the creation of a mapping and census of the cats in the municipal area, for planning and control in sterilizations according to the population volume to be controlled, to be efficient and prevent an increase in the number of cats.
Additionally, the management will include sterilization programs for cats by a qualified veterinarian, including ear marking and a health program for the colony, signed and supervised by a licensed veterinary professional, including at least deworming, vaccination, and mandatory identification through a microchip with municipal responsibility.
It is proven that proper control of feline colonies with the sterilization and return strategy, correctly applied, is an effective measure that, combined with the adoption of sociable specimens, control of abandonment and breeding, can lead to a drastic reduction in the long term of feline populations in freedom, which is the ultimate goal of this program.
The procedure for managing feline colonies will involve capturing and sanitarily controlling the cats (internal and external deworming, vaccination, and implantation of the identifying chip), their sterilization, ear marking, and return to their original colony, through the CER method (Capture – Sterilization – Return). Always following the conditions, guidelines, and supervision of qualified personnel, and involving a licensed veterinary professional in the sterilization process.
The CER method allows, by having the majority of the colony sterilized (no less than 80%), during the mating season to achieve:
a. Improve the well-being of cats by reducing stress within the group.
b. Control aggression among cats.
c. Reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases.
d. Prevent the exponential growth of the population due to the presence of sexually active cats.
The implementation of a Municipal Program for the Management of Feline Colonies will be agreed upon with the protection entities and individuals involved, also foreseeing the creation of the general coordinating unit of the project that will fall on the City Council.
With the operation of this program, the cats in the colonies will be perfectly registered and identified through a microchip that will be placed on them at the time of capture so that data can be included and a registry can be maintained regarding the health assessment (general condition, presence of parasites, etc.), colony of origin, capture date, sterilization, marking, and return to the colony, photographic image for cat identification, location of the ear marking according to sex, reference association for the cat and the colony.
Caregivers and Feeding
Other aspects that the program will address include the creation of the figure of the colony caretaker, who can also be groups and associations that, duly authorized, would be responsible for caring for the cats belonging to a colony, collaborating in sanitary control and the application of the feline colony management method, without being considered the owner or responsible person of the cats in it.
The caretakers will receive training on the control, management, and monitoring of feline colonies by competent personnel. A list of authorized caregivers will be created, providing them with an identification document.
Citizen Participation
The program will be subject to public information so that all interested individuals or groups can make their contributions, and the affected citizens will be given a hearing and collect any additional contributions that can be made by other individuals or entities.
The Avilés City Council considers citizen participation fundamental, and to ensure an inclusive process, meetings of citizen participation groups will be held to gather the contributions and views of the residents, integrating their concerns into the program design.
FUENTE