SF ACC Does Not Help Homeless Kitten

What happened on Wednesday, September 28, 2022 is a perfect example of why the cats and kittens of San Francisco NEED YOU.

A Good Samaritan was walking down Market by the Civic Center when she spotted this 7 month old kitten.

Dexter on Market Street

Homeless kitten on Market Street in San Francisco

She reached out to a member of the cat community who recommended that she call SF Animal Care & Control (ACC), the city’s shelter.

SF ACC told her they could not come get the kitten unless it was sick or injured. She told them that she could not tell for certain, but they said that was not enough.

Certainly being on Market Street in front of an abandoned store is a dangerous place for any cat to be! He was scared, shivering and had no place to go. How long would it be before he became sick or injured or dead?

She didn’t know what to do, she was on her way to work and could not leave this kitten outside to fend for himself. So the member of the cat community reached out to a number of people to see if someone could help go get the kitten. A Give Me Shelter (GMS) Cat Rescue volunteer was available and went to rescue the kitten that same morning.

GMS volunteer feeding Dexter who is showing no signs of being feral (afraid of humans).

She brought him home, fed him and found that he was an unneutered male with no microchip.

Meet Dexter!

He will be vetted and available for adoption soon. Lucky for him, he won’t have to face another day on the streets. Don’t you think every friendly, healthy cat and kitten should get a chance to enjoy living life safely inside?

Dexter in foster care

Dexter safe in foster care.

Take Action!

URGENT: SF Animal Care and Control is Refusing to Help Cats in Need

San Francisco’s Animal Care and Control (SF ACC) is refusing to accept LOST, ABANDONED, and STRAY FRIENDLY CATS and KITTENS! According to Director Virginia Donohue, they no longer take in “healthy cats who are living outside.”

All over the city, people are calling in to SF ACC asking for help and are being told to put cats BACK ON THE STREETS, violating SF ACC’s own Mission Statement, the San Francisco Municipal Code, and state laws.

On Valentines Day this year, I was driving down Bayshore Blvd. when I heard a panicked orange cat screaming as it dodged traffic in an intersection. When I pulled over and called to him, he literally ran to me, shaking with relief. A gorgeous burnt orange tabby, dirty but incredibly friendly and a good weight, I was able to examine him easily and could feel a microchip in his neck, and knew he was a lost owned cat.

I brought him home temporarily, keeping him separate from my many foster kittens, and called SF ACC to reunite him with his owners. However, the moment SF ACC heard that he was found on the street I was told to “put him back where I found him.” They didn’t even let me finish explaining before they insisted he should be returned to the intersection where I found him running for his life, claiming it wasn’t their responsibility to help reunite him with his owners.

They refused to even scan him for a chip, and told me I should post on NextDoor, instead of asking ACC for help. They said he would find his own way home, and when I explained that he was found in extreme danger they said that “cats cross roads all the time” and if they got hit that was at their owner’s risk.

They insisted that he was now my responsibility, while also demanding that I should put him back at the intersection. Finally, after I insisted, they agreed to scan him for a chip, but simultaneously said that if I couldn’t keep him with me because of my kitten fosters, that I put him back where I found him once he’d been scanned.

When I questioned how practical it would be to scan him and contact his owners after he was returned to the street (What would I tell the owners when they were contacted if I didn’t have the cat?), they told me they no longer had time for me and hung up.

At the time, there were only about 20 cats in shelter, a majority in foster, and 1 cat up for adoption, more than enough space to care for one lost ginger cat while he was reunited with his desperately worried owners. - Alena Ja

This has happened to countless others:

  • A woman who tried to bring a clearly stray, still lactating, friendly mother cat to ACC after her kittens (born in her yard) had been weaned and adopted out was told immediately, without even looking at the cat or letting her explain the cat was unfixed and clearly unowned, that the cat was probably a lost cat and to put it back outside where she found her, to undoubtedly get pregnant again.

  • A good Samaritan who found a dazed friendly cat wandering her street was told to put the cat back without even examining the cat for injury.

  • A woman who rescued two friendly cats (a mother cat who brought her kittens to the door and a tom cat she rescued from the side of a freeway), was told by SF ACC to keep the cats and look for owners for a month. When she was unsuccessful advertising through social media and flyers, she was then told a month later by SF ACC that she had kept the cats for too long and was now considered their owner and would have to pay SF ACC to surrender them. The mother cat was reimpregnated by the tom cat shortly after.

San Francisco deserves better than this. We deserve our only open door public municipal shelter to value animal life, and look for ways to help, not actively neglect our city’s cats.

For decades SF ACC has been a model shelter, helping to rescue hundreds of thousands of cats, diverting them from life on the streets and preventing them from adding to stray and feral overpopulation. They did the work, reuniting lost cats with owners, adopting out friendly cats to new homes, saving injured and sick cats’ lives.

Suddenly, just when they’ve moved into a new $76.4 million brand new facility, they want to abandon the cats that need them most and put responsibility on the untrained and unfunded public to take in, care for, and find homes for animals they find, instead of SF ACC, which specifically hires, trains, and gets funding (our tax payer dollars) for caring for animals.

Please help us protest this inhumane change by signing our petition at

https://www.change.org/ReformSFACC

Wild Coyotes Prey On Domestic Cats

Coyote in San Francisco Botanical Garden

Coyote in San Francisco Botanical Garden

The cat community in San Francisco is outraged that SF Animal Care and Control (ACC), funded by our tax dollars, is no longer willing to take in

  • “feral” kittens - kittens found outside who are weaned, but still very young and easy prey for coyotes. The reason they instruct trappers to return them “to the wild” is that they appear to them to be “feral” as they show fear of humans by hissing and hiding. Often, kittens 4 months and younger are still able to be socialized and adoptable. (The State of California does not consider cats to be wild animals.)

  • stray cats - social cats found in unsafe locations. The reason they instruct callers to just leave the cat where found is that they believe the cat is just roaming and will return to their home. They do not take into account that the cat may have been chased by a dog or coyote and has left their roaming zone. ACC staff could scan for a microchip and help reunite lost cats with their humans.

Domestic cats (whether feral or socialized) are prey for Coyotes.

Articles:

What Do Coyotes EAT Here in San Francisco

New Study Says Urban Coyotes Eat Garbage, Ornamental Fruit and Domestic Cats

Coyotes, pets and community cats

9 thoughts on “Coyotes Don’t Eat Cats Very Often”

Understanding Coyote Behavior in Urban/Suburban Areas and Assessing Risk to Cats

Goals to Present to the Mayor and Supervisors regarding SF ACC

We have been attending the SF ACW meetings and nothing, NOTHING, has happened yet. We are not giving up! This is a minimum of what we want to happen:

1) SF ACC to reverse the policy changes in regards to feral queens and kittens.

2) SF ACC to reinstate contacting Volunteer Trappers when member of the public call in about feral mom cats and/or kittens.

3) Reverse Call Interested Person (CIP) changes.
These changes make it more difficult for anyone who turns in a homeless animal to prevent that animal from being euthanized. SF ACC is giving themselves the power to refuse to return the stray animal to the person who brought it in. As a result, a volunteer with an SF ACC rescue partner states they are now very hesitant to recommend people bring cats to the city shelter. Further, the new “Good Samaritan” policy (which replaces CIP) has language that is trying to categorize feral cats as wildlife, rather than domestic cats that are homeless

4) Set up an oversight committee with power to oversee and insure that laws are being followed in regards to animal welfare, that data and statistics (including medical data) are accurately collected and available to the public.

5) All recent SF ACC policy changes be reverted back and not allowed to be made without public meetings that include input from volunteers, the rescue community, the public, the ACC Advisory Commission and approved by the oversight committee.

There is a more detailed legislative proposal here.

October ACWC Meeting Issues

The original issue - the policy change to no longer immediately send volunteer trappers out when a member of the public calls Animal Care & Control San Francisco (SFACC) or the SF SPCA - has NOT been resolved. It has never been reversed as the rescue community and the Commision originally requested. The Commission was going to meet with one of the Supervisors regarding whether SFACC is responsible for homeless “feral” cats.

There is a second agenda item which NEEDS your support:

On April 30, 2019 SFACC stopped its CIP (call interested person) policy. What does this mean? If you bring in a homeless or abandoned animal you can no longer put a hold on them. This means there is NO SAFETY NET for this animal should SFACC decide to destroy the animal.

Read about the puppy killed at SFACC. https://www.facebook.com/139719697585/posts/10158900669562586?sfns=mo His finder wanted to put a CIP on him and had a rescue lined up. SFACC killed the puppy anyway!

The animals of San Francisco need your voice!

Please read Susan Reynolds article from the Marina Times which summarizes our concerns as well as her latest article about the issue:

http://www.marinatimes.com/2019/08/leaving-feral-kittens-outside-longer-is-a-bad-idea/ which

http://www.marinatimes.com/2019/09/s-f-spca-using-underhanded-tactics-to-push-controversial-feral-cat-policy/

Homeless “feral” cats are SFACC’s responsibility.

SF Park Code which distinguishes cats from wildlife: SEC. 5.07. FEEDING ANIMALS PROHIBITED.

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to feed or offer to any animal in any park any substance which would be likely to be harmful to it.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any person to feed, or offer food or any substance to any animal in any park which is wild by nature and not customarily domesticated in the City and County of San Francisco. However, the Recreation and Park Commission may authorize the feeding of certain animals or birds in specified areas.

(c) It shall unlawful for any person to feed, or offer food or any substance to any animal in the San Francisco Zoological Gardens without specific authorization from Zoo staff.

(Added by Ord. 603-81, App. 12/18/81); Ord. 38-10, File No. 091441, App. 2/18/2010)

SF's online version of the Municipal Code. https://www.amlegal.com/codes/client/san-francisco_ca/

See also SFACC’s Mission Statement:

“The San Francisco Department of Animal Care & Control (SFACC) is a taxpayer-funded, open-admission animal shelter. Since 1989, SFACC has provided housing, care, and medical treatment to wild, exotic and domestic stray, lost, abandoned, sick, injured, and surrendered animals. SFACC’s doors are open to all animals in need regardless of species, medical, or behavioral condition.”

KQED Forum: San Francisco Changes Feral Cat and Kitten Policy

KQED Forum: San Francisco Changes Feral Cat and Kitten Policy

San Francisco's SPCA and Animal Care & Control recently changed the trap, neuter and return policy for feral cats and kittens. This policy encouraged volunteers to trap feral mothers with new kittens, bring them to an animal shelter to be spayed or neutered, and then put the kittens up for adoption. Instead, the shelters now advocate leaving feral cats alone until their kittens are weaned, which they say protects the wild mother cats from the stress of living in a shelter. Some animal volunteers are against the new policy, saying that it puts the kittens at greater risk of starvation and death. We'll talk about the policy change, and its effects on San Francisco's feral cat population.

Two good animal organizations are losing community support over feral cat policy changes

Sally Stephens has written a second article in the SF Examiner about the concerns of San Francisco’s cat community (comprised of rescue groups, volunteers, guardians, and cat lovers). The article covers the San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commission (ACWC) meeting that was held on June 20, 2019. We hope she’ll join us at the next ACWC meeting July 18, 2019 (SF City Hall, Room 408, 5:30pm).

Animal Control and Welfare Commission

On June 20, 2019, the Animal Control and Welfare Commission met to hear SF ACC, SF SPCA and the San Francisco community (trappers, fosters, feral feeders, interested individuals) discuss the new policy that SF ACC, SF SPCA in concert with UC Davis put in place without consultation with the volunteer community.

A video of the meeting is HERE, but beware that it lasted 3 hours and 45 minutes.

More summaries of the meeting are to come.

SF ACC and SF SPCA yet to reinstate prior protocols

While many who are concerned about this issue have been reaching out to Virginia Donohoe at SF ACC and Jennifer Scarlett at SF SPCA, they have continued to repeat their belief that leaving moms with kittens alone until the kittens are weaned is a good policy. They claim that keeping the feral moms indoors had poor outcomes without providing specific statistics. Others claim that records from prior years show different.

Please write to them with any specific information which you personally know to be true, and share that information with us as well.

Nathan Winegrad on Dr. Hurley

Breaking Ranks: The Evolution of Dr. Kate Hurley

If the attitudes and beliefs of Dr. Kate Hurley, the director of the U.C. Davis Shelter Medicine Program, are any indication, the kill-oriented sheltering movement is in trouble. I just finished watching Hurley’s video “New Approaches to Community Cats” where she tells shelter directors to stop taking in and killing cats regardless of whether they are friendly or “feral,” where she tells them that as it relates to scared cats, there is simply no such thing as “humane euthanasia,” where she blasts the viewpoint that “open admission is better,” and where she says that killing is not a necessity; it is, first and foremost, a choice. As a long-time critic of the historically regressive and reactionary views championed by Dr. Hurley, I found myself applauding what appears to be—at least on the issue of cats—a complete turn-around in Dr. Hurley’s message and beliefs.

Last updated: 13 November 2022