Feeding Ban Position Statement

Alley Cat Allies opposes feeding bans for community cats. Feeding bans are cruel and do not achieve their goal of removing cats from the community. Feeding ban laws, ordinances, and policies are misguided policy and are wholly ineffective.

Feeding bans do not work, and are not scientifically supported.
Attempts to eradicate cats outdoors by starvation fail because there are other food sources that are a by-product of urban and suburban environments. Community cat populations’ density and locations are not contingent on individuals intentionally providing food for the cats.^{1, 2} Studies have shown that other sources of food are always available including food scraps in household trash and municipal garbage facilities.³ Cats are territorial and bond to their surroundings. As scavengers, they can find food in garbage cans and dumpsters.

In certain situations, cats who have been fed on a consistent schedule can become dependent on their caregivers for food, and in these cases, to abruptly discontinue care is cruel and can lead to the death of some cats. But cats will not disappear simply because compassionate people can no longer legally feed them.

Feeding bans encourage cats to roam further to find food, making them more visible, which can actually increase calls to animal control. Managing a colony with a program that includes Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and consistent, organized feeding discourages roaming because neutered males are no longer searching for mates, and there is decreased competition for dominance rank.⁴ Cats who are fed on a regular schedule tend to stay in close proximity to their feeding stations. Feeders can also exercise control over the behavior of cats by gradually moving their feeding stations into less-trafficked areas.

Feeding bans discourage the practice of Trap-Neuter-Return, the only effective course of action for stabilizing the community cat population. Scientific studies as well as decades of hands-on experience show that TNR programs work to end the breeding cycle, improve the cats’ health, and make them better neighbors by ending mating behaviors. ⁵

With a feeding ban in place, TNR is impossible to carry out, and the cats continue to have new litters of kittens.

Feeding bans punish the very people who are working to improve conditions for the cats and for the community.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans, spending their own time and money, organize low-cost spay/neuter clinics, carry out TNR programs and organize foster programs for adoptable cats and kittens. These Good Samaritans are an asset to the community. Feeding bans force their work into secrecy or even place them at risk of fines and jail time.

Feeding bans are difficult to enforce. Compassionate people will continue to help the cats. They are also complaint-driven, and rapidly deteriorate into a situation of extreme cruelty, with no net benefit to the community.

Feeding bans ignore the real problem–the lack of affordable spay/neuter services in the community. Feeding bans are punitive and tend to direct resources towards administrative tasks like enforcement and away from incentive-based programs that encourage spay/neuter. Ineffective ordinances, like feeding bans, are a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Alley Cat Allies encourages communities to reject cruel, punitive, and ineffective ordinances and instead to embrace humane programs that really work to stabilize the population and keep cats out of animal shelters, including Trap-Neuter-Return for community cats and subsidize and low-cost spay and neuter for all cats.