Draper recently updated city code to help Community (feral) Cats and those who care for them. As a result, the work volunteers are doing to help the cats while curtailing their population is no longer breaking the law. Draper was one of three cities in the county that hadn’t adopted or updated code regarding Community Cats.

Volunteers spoke during public comments at a December council meeting, indicating they first brought the topic to the city’s attention eight years ago. “Something more pressing always seems to come up. The time for action is now,” one volunteer said. In April, the council broached the subject during a study session to figure out the best way forward. Community Cat volunteer Jennifer Palmer came to that meeting. “I live in Draper, and I want to be able to do this in Draper, but also follow the rules,” she said. 

Palmer describes herself as an animal lover. A couple years ago, a friend who knew Palmer’s love for animals called to ask her help with a mother cat and kittens living on a farm in West Jordan. “I ended up taking care of this little group of cats which I learned later is called a colony,” she said. Palmer was able to pass the care of that colony onto another volunteer, but soon after, she found out about a colony in Draper. “They needed daily care including a feeder and a person to get them fixed and vaccinated. That’s the one I’m actively involved in now. It’s a very big commitment which is one reason we needed to get city code changed, so we can find other people interested in helping. There are so few of us and such a massive need,” she said. 

Palmer estimates there are upward of 10,000 Community Cats within Draper’s city boundaries.

Palmer works with Pam Crow and others who are in contact through text and social media. Some volunteers act as “lone rangers.” Despite having jobs and families, these people donate their time and resources toward caring for the cats. “Some do this like a full-time job, unpaid, using their own money,” Palmer said. 

Their work goes far beyond feeding, though that’s the starting point since the cats only come around if there’s food. The procedure they follow is trap, neuter, vaccinate and release (TNVR). Volunteers intermittently set up cameras to monitor cats in a colony. If a cat has been spayed or neutered, its ear was “tipped” while under anesthesia. If volunteers see cats in the camera whose ears aren’t tipped, they make a plan to trap those cats and deliver them to a veterinarian for care. But first, they have to count the untipped cats and have the number of traps needed, as many as 10 at a time. Appointments must also be set up in advance with veterinarians willing to do the surgery and able to handle the number of cats. 

Crow explained Community Cats are prevalent in Draper because this used to be farm land and farmers often had outdoor cats to catch mice and voles. Most often, those cats weren’t spayed. 

“They tear down the farms and the cats get left behind. If they’re not fixed, they’re multiplying and trying to survive. They migrate into neighborhoods or businesses where there’s food,” she said. Crow said sadly sometimes people living in apartments with pet cats leave them behind when they move. “One misunderstanding when people leave cats behind is they think they’ll fend for themselves, but that’s old school thinking,” she said. 

Crow first got involved with Community Cats in 2018 when a woman on Facebook asked for cat food. Ironically, Crow said she “was on a break” from pet cats at the time after her own two cats had lived to be 18 and 19 and passed away, but she thought she’d simply help by answering that woman’s request. “When I went over to take her food, there were about 30 cats. ‘I said, oh dear, you need more than cat food. You need to get these cats fixed’. She said she had been caring for them for a few years and there were only a few at first, but three years later, there were 30,” she said. Crow said that’s why it’s so necessary to make people aware of resources and veterinarians who will fix cats at little to no cost. 

Crow and other volunteers “try to keep things discreet so things aren’t cluttery…we want to keep the community clean” and they “always get permission to care for cats if it’s at somebody’s home or business.” Crow also said volunteers are careful not to feed other wildlife. “We put up an elevated feeding station because we don’t want to feed the wildlife, we want the wildlife to stay wild. We elevate the food so it’s only for the kittens,” she said.

Sometimes volunteers find cats that can be fostered and adopted into homes, and that is their sincere hope. On a rare occasion, they’ve reunited an owner with a lost cat found living in a colony. But most often, Community Cats aren’t socialized enough to be adopted. Instead, they’re left to live in colonies with the support of people like Palmer and Crow.

“It’s farm meets city and we’re all trying to coexist,” Crow said. 

According to City Attorney Traci Gundersen, Utah State Law includes an animal welfare act with a “carve-out” or provision for feral cats. But Draper’s code only addressed harboring or abandoning cats, both of which are illegal. “The point of the harboring stray animals law is directed at residents who find a cat. You don’t want to harbor someone’s owned cat. If you take it to animal control, it allows them to find the cat’s owner. But when it’s a feral cat, nobody is going to be looking for it,” Gundersen said. 

The abandonment portion was also a quandary because the volunteers’ TNVR procedure ends with releasing community cats back into their colonies. The “release” component of returning them could be considered “abandonment” under old city code, despite the volunteers’ good intentions.

Palmer praised Gundersen and City Manager Mike Barker for finally making the code change happen. “They were respectful, caring and so professional. This gives us protection, allowing us to openly feed, trap and release Community Cats without fear of being charged,” she said. 

Palmer and Crow are seeking help from anyone who’d like to donate cat food or help them care for Community Cats. “I will absolutely guide someone on how to do it,” Crow said. Anyone interested in helping in those ways can email [email protected].

Equally important, they want people to be aware of resources to help alleviate the problem with vouchers for food and free or low cost vaccinations, spaying and neutering: Best Friends Animal Society, www.bestfriends.org and the Utah Humane Society, www.utahhumane.org. λ