Cat control is really only pest control

No municipal pound ought to have any animals at all except its own stray and dangerous dogs. Pounds have no business being in the animal welfare business until their municipality has enforced breeding controls and bans on yard dogs.

Cat control is no more than pest control paid for by the taxpayers. Cats are not a public danger, as Coquitlam's solicitor claims, and therefore there is no duty for any municipality to accept cats. And to accept feral cats, with the stated intention of killing them, is pest control and nothing more. Any pound that does that is not practising animal welfare, is not a shelter, and is not no-kill.

Until taxpayers make their wishes known on the subject of cat control by killing the cats, municipalities should not involve themselves with cats in any way. Cat rescuers are capable and willing, out of their own pockets, to humanely look after feral cats. Killing ferals is just what the SPCA did for so long. No municipality can boast that it is superior to the SPCA if it accepts and kills ferals.