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How are we doing? If you have a question, complaint or suggestion about coverage of Orange and Chatham counties in The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News, post your comments in this blog or e-mail us. Comments here may be reprinted in The News & Observer or Chapel Hill News.
Council keeps cats off leash
Submitted by jessedeconto on 01/13/2009 - 13:11
The Town Council Monday denied a plea from a local resident to require cat-owners to keep their pets on leashes outside their homes. The council dismissed the petition without discussion. The petitioner had complained about a neighbor's cat killing birds, but town-hall staff advised the council that town code already prohibits cat from "public nuisance" behavior such as damaging bird feeders, gardens, sandboxes, and vehicles, as well as harming birds and other destructive or threatening conduct.
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Jesse James DeConto is the government reporter for Chapel Hill and Orange County for The News & Observer and The Chapel Hill News.Want to post a comment?
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Comments
Mixed feelings...
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 18:29 — jasonbakerI don't think any cat I've ever owned could be truly happy confined to a life indoors or even to a leash, but cats are a pretty significant threat to all sorts of birds and ground-dwelling rodents. It's not such problem here, but in the mountains there are a good number of endemic species of small mammals that are in real danger of dying off, and being hunted by "non-native invasives" (domestic cats) sure isn't helping them. Besides that, cats have the potential to become disease vectors, and compete with native predators.
See: http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/
Good point
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 19:16 — rubyjiYou raise an excellent point, Jason. Now I remember why I swore off pets 20 years ago. By domesticating animals, humans have thrown things out of whack.
I guess I will just have to live with the guilt because I can't give up my cats or their happiness. Add it to the list of compromises we make to live in this society.
Wow!
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 21:35 — elvisboy77You have cats that are more than 20 years old? Amazing!
Nature
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 14:57 — rubyjiProhibiting cats from killing birds makes about as much sense as keeping Republican from complaining about taxes. It's in the their nature - you can't change that. If you don't like it, don't feed them...
I have an idea
Wed, 01/14/2009 - 21:39 — elvisboy77Maybe us republicans can create a special bird killing tax on cats, that would make everyone happy!
Seriously, though- cats are predators. They kill birds. That is mother nature at work. To think us humans can change that would be as silly as trying to change the whole glow ball warming thing, which btw is really all about taxes too.
jblues -- According to the
Tue, 01/13/2009 - 14:53 — jessedeconto (author)jblues -- According to the staff report, which you can link to from the blog post, "harming birds" becomes an illegal public nuisance if it is done repeatedly on another person's property. Harming pets or livestock would categorize a cat as "vicious", according to the staff report. That's another level of nuisance.
Harming birds? No.
Tue, 01/13/2009 - 14:34 — jblues1969Actually it says cats are prohibited from killing or injuring "pets or domestic livestock" on someone else's property. You cite killing birds (presumably wild birds) as prohibited behavior and that is not the case.