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As Orange County animal shelters gear up for peak kitten season, the county-run shelter still refuses to offer catch and release services for feral cats.
Trap, neuter and release — often referred to as TNR — is the practice of trapping feral or community cats living outside, spaying or neutering the animals to prevent reproduction and returning the cats back where they were found since they’re unsocialized to people.
Animal shelters and municipal animal care centers across the nation offer catch and release services to help maintain feral cat populations and prevent shelter overcrowding.
While kittens are born year-round, cats’ reproductive cycles usually begin around March and can last through October, causing an increased number of kittens born during the spring and summer months.
OC Animal Care used to offer trap, neuter and release services before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But officials nixed the program over concerns that releasing cats back into the community could be considered animal abandonment, which is illegal.
Activists have spent years calling for the shelter to reinstate TNR in order to help reduce the increasing number of kittens and feral cats on the streets.
OC Grand Jurors also voiced concerns about the lack of catch and release services during an investigation released in 2023.
“The Grand Jury’s investigation determined that termination of the TNR program had detrimental consequences for the welfare of the animals under the shelter’s care,” Grand Jurors wrote.
“The elimination of the TNR program also has contributed to substantial public dissatisfaction and alienation that undermines the public’s and the rescue community’s relations with shelter leadership.”
[Read: Grand Jury: OC Animal Shelter Needs Updated Policies to Stop Killing More Animals]
Now, a legal case in neighboring San Diego County could have effects in town when it comes to the legality of trap and release services.
A Catch and Release Court Battle in San Diego
Orange County officials have long pointed to a lawsuit in San Diego County as an example of how catch and release programs could face legal challenges.
Yet the case essentially boiled down to which cats are legally allowed to be caught, spayed/neutered and released.
A San Diego County Superior Court judge ruled against the San Diego Humane Society in December, finding the organization’s community cats program illegally included domesticated cats when conducting catch and release services.
San Diego County contracts with the San Diego Humane Society for animal services, including sheltering, adoptions and animal control. The humane society runs a community cats program, which spays and neuters free-roaming, outdoor cats and returns them back to their outdoor homes.
The humane society’s definition of community cats included both feral and friendly cats that live outside with no verifiable signs of ownership.
Judge Katherine Bacal said the Humane Society’s inclusion of domesticated cats as part of the trap and release program is illegal and these cats should be given a chance for adoption inside a shelter.
“The Court finds that including domesticated cats in the definition of community cats and returning to the community domesticated cat without a known caretaker would violate the law,” Bacal said during a court hearing on Dec. 20, according to a transcript from the hearing.
But Judge Bacal’s concerns didn’t extend to feral cats.
“Domestic would seem to me not feral,” Bacal said, according to a transcript from the hearing. “Under the statutes, feral means unsocialized to people.”
Nina Thompson, spokesperson for the San Diego Humane Society, confirmed that the organization will continue a modified version of the community cat program in response to Bacal’s concerns, but declined to elaborate on what those changes entail.
The Pet Assistance Foundation, a Southern California-based nonprofit that advocates for spay and neuter services, led the charge on the lawsuit in San Diego.
Sharon Logan, an Orange County resident and one of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit, emphasized the litigation only focused on healthy, adoptable cats being released back into the community.
She said they fully support trap, neuter and release programs for feral cats and she’s spent years advocating for Orange County to reinstate the service for feral, non-adoptable cats.
“We are 100% for tried-and-true TNR for feral cats,” Logan said in an interview. “It’s much needed. It helps control the population and helps control unwanted litter.”
“What we are not for is for these shelters and big box organizations labeling healthy, friendly adoptable, non-feral cats as community cats as a way to bolster their live release rate,” she said.
OC Animal Care’s website also specifies that feral cats are unsocialized, undomesticated and cannot be placed for adoption.
OC Animal Care Still Declines to Offer Trap, Neuter And Release
Shelter leaders maintain that catch and release services are illegal and don’t offer the services for any type of cat — feral or not.
Alexa Pratt, spokesperson for OC Animal Care, said the county has been closely following the court case in San Diego County.
“OC Animal Care has been advised by counsel that the ruling in this case is consistent with the current position that the release of unowned cats into the community is prohibited by law,” Pratt wrote in a Feb. 14 statement sent to Voice of OC.
OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who was elected back to the board in November, has previously called for reform at OC Animal Care and introduced two state bills to address the management transparency of animal shelters during her time serving on the California State Senate last year.
One of those bills would have explicitly ensured trap, neuter and release programs were legal statewide, but it didn’t pass.
“Trap, neuter and release (TNR) is a humane way to solve the overpopulation of feral cats,” Nguyen wrote in a Friday statement. “This has been a gray area in the law for years as animal abandonment is a misdemeanor — but is this really abandonment by returning the animals to where they were collected?”
“I attempted to fix this last year in the Senate by introducing SB 1459, which allows TNR by exempting it from the abandonment statute,” she wrote. “The bill did not pass, which was really unfortunate because my office received hundreds of calls from passionate cat owners who were happy that someone in Sacramento was finally looking at this issue.”
Nguyen also mentioned the San Diego Humane Society ruling, calling it a “sad situation that needs to be addressed by the Legislature.”
Catch And Release Across Southern California
Trap, neuter and release programs are common across Southern California, including Orange County.
Garden Grove Animal Care Services offers catch and release services — called the Return to Field Program — for feral and community cats on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Ana Pulido, spokesperson for Garden Grove, said the program usually traps about six cats each week. She said 150 residents signed up for the program last year.
“The program protects cats by treating them for diseases, spaying or neutering them to prevent overpopulation, and returning them to their respective neighborhoods, not to mention lessening the impact on animal shelters, which are all very important,” Pulido said in a statement.
As part of Garden Grove’s Return to Field Program, 226 cats were spayed or neutered, microchipped, given flea medication and vaccinated during the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
The city of Los Angeles, San Bernadino County, Riverside County and Ventura County all offer trap, neuter and release programs for feral and community cats — while Orange County maintains the practice is illegal.
On Nov. 19, 2024, the OC Board of Supervisors voted to support any proposed legislation to authorize the establishment of catch and release programs at the state level.
Logan said she’s been sending the Orange County Board of Supervisors the ruling from the San Diego Humane Society case and calling for them to reinstate a trap, neuter and release program for feral cats immediately.
“Hopefully they will try to start taking proactive measures to do spay and neuter throughout the county for feral cats again,” Logan said. “That is a must.”
Angelina Hicks is a Voice of OC Tracy Wood Reporting Fellow. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
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