The State’s lack of action to stop feline straying: One Voice is going to court

While the requirement to neuter stray cats that have been taken in by communities was initially planned for, it has been quashed under pressure from local councillors. Instead of this, there are campaigns led on an experimental basis by the State in cooperation with mayors and presidents of local volunteer communities. An initial step all the same... yes, but...!

Even writing a report seems to prove too complicated for the State...

To begin this experiment, the government must hand a report providing a detailed assessment on the issue of feline straying to Parliament, estimating the cost of capturing and neutering as well as financial methods, all while presenting recommendations to respond to this problem. All of this is to be done no later than six months after the enactment of the law... so by 1 June at the latest. We have written to the Ministry of Agriculture several times, who have not deigned to respond to us, thus showing their disdain for the suffering of stray cats. One year later, last June, the government announced that the work was underway. If the Ministry does not want to face up to their responsibilities, we will force them to before the courts. Now that the deadline has passed by a year and a half, we have today filed a plea before the Paris Administrative Tribunal so that it can order the government to hand over this document.

A life of misery

While waiting, stray cats continue to breed and to suffer. When they are not under the protection of a volunteer, they fight daily to find something to eat and lay dying for days when they are ill or injured. Instead of helping them, many towns do all they can to get them to disappear in a heartless way: they ban feeding them, they destroy their shelters, but above all they will not pay a penny to get them neutered and take this weight off their shoulders. When they are finally captured, it is not to be cared for and loved: they are sent to a pound, where they are left to die. After the legal limit for keeping them there has passed, they are quite simply slaughtered. The arrival of the Olympic Games this summer does not bode well, since sporting events often generate large-scale eradication campaigns.

To put an end to this infuriating cycle of suffering and mass slaughter, there is one solution: obligatory neutering, as is already the case in neighbouring Belgium and Spain. Ask for an urgent national plan for stray cats with us: sign our petition.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice