Mom cats and kittens need you to be their voice!
SIX WAYS TO VOICE YOUR CONCERN:
1) Write Jennifer Scarlett, DVM, President SF SPCA
jscarlett@sfspca.org
2) Write Virginia Donohue, Executive Director - SF Animal Care and Control (SFACC) Virginia.Donohue@sfgov.org
3) Write Carmen Chu, SF City Administrator (oversees SFACC))
city.administrator@sfgov.org
Petition e-mailed to Naomi Kelly (prior SF City Administrator) on 6/27/2019 with 491 unique signatures (out of 525)
4) Write your member of the Board of Supervisors
ask that Naomi Kelly direct Viginia Donohue to reverse this regressive policy
(to find your supervisor, click on supervisorial distract map or SF districts lookup) :
Supervisor Connie Chan, District 1: Sandra.Fewer@sfgov.org
Supervisor Catherine Stefani, District 2: Catherine.Stefani@sfgov.org
Supervisor Aaron Peskin, District 3: Aaron.Peskin@sfgov.org
Supervisor Gordon Mar, District 4: Gordon.Mar@sfgov.org
Supervisor Dean Preston, District 5: Dean.Preston@sfgov.org
Supervisor Matt Dorsey, District 6: (415) 554-7970
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, District 7: MelgarStaff@sfgov.org
Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, District 8: MandelmanStaff@sfgov.org
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, District 9: Hillary.Ronen@sfgov.org
Supervisor Shamann Walton, District 10: Shamann.Walton@sfgov.org
Supervisor Ahsha Safai, District 11: Ahsha.Safai@sfgov.org
5) Write a Letter to the Editor at SF Chronicle. Click on Submit a letter.
6) Attend the SF Commission of Animal Control & Welfare (ACWC) meetings that occur every 2nd Thursday at 5:30pm, either Remote or in San Francisco City Hall, Room 408. Seems we’ll be on the agenda for a while longer.
last updated 7/1/2022
THE ISSUE
The executive leadership of SF ACC and SF SPCA have changed how they help feral moms and young kittens and won’t send volunteer trappers in most cases. Unfortunately, they are recommending leaving the the kittens outdoors until they are old enough to be weaned.
This flies in the face of decades of experience which have demonstrated the following:
Kittens in the wild are often in extreme danger from disease, predation and moms abandoning them (such as through death or illness). The best way to capture a mom with very young, nursing kittens is to use the kittens as bait to lure the mom into the trap.
Waiting until kittens are older carries a high risk of never finding them again because they have wandered off or the mother has moved them.
Some residents don’t like cats and will often not put up with the wait and will be tempted to get rid of the kittens in a cruel manner.
Feral kittens become much harder to capture when they are older than three weeks. By that time they are extremely fast and have learned from their mom to hide and to run from potential predators, such as raccoons, coyotes, and humans.
The feral kittens who do manage to survive in the wild will contribute to an explosion of more kittens; females can get pregnant at the tender age of SIX MONTHS! Their unspayed moms can have 3 litters a year! And the vicious cycle continues…