Plan to catch, “fix,” then release feral cats back into La Crosse community passes committee

A La Crosse city committee is approving a change in how stray cats are handled around the community. 

The Judiciary and Administration Committee endorsed a plan Tuesday to spay and neuter certain feral cats, vaccinate them, and release them again, instead of taking them to a shelter where they could be euthanized. 

“This would just be for those ones that are already out there, that just constantly reproduce, and cause havoc in some of those neighborhoods,” Heather Drievold, executive director at the Coulee Region Humane Society, said.

The proposal to regulate the number of “community cats” heads to the full city council for a vote next week. The humane society has received a grant to pay for the project, so it’s not asking City Hall for extra funding.

Several years ago, local leaders were asked permission to hunt wild cats, which caused an uproar.

Mayor Mitch Reynolds told the committee Tuesday that the plan is designed to save money and reduce the cat problem.

“It is almost impossible to adopt out all the cats that are coming in to the humane society, because there are just so many,” Reynolds said. “What this will do will provide us a long-term solution that will indeed lessen our costs for animal control over the long term, because there will be far fewer cats.”

Under this plan, after a cat has been spayed or neutered, part of its ear would be clipped to show that it has already been treated and returned to the wild.