Feral cats are running rampant through the city and some believe it’s time to introduce cat regulation into a Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) animal control bylaw, according to Brian Taylor, mayor of Grand Forks.
The animal control bylaw, proposed and debated over the last month, has caused emotions to run high, said Taylor. “We need to take a bit of time to take a deep breath here and come up with a better draft document,” said Taylor.
Elaine Kumar, director of corporate administration with the RDKB, and the stakeholders, Electoral Areas C, D and the Cities of Grand Forks and Greenwood, are currently working on amalgamating the proposed bylaw with some recommendations that have come forward.
One of those recommendations raised by residents deals with regulating cats, said Taylor.
“We are struggling with the aspect of do we want to include any cats in the bylaw,” said Taylor. “There are a number of people who feel that we have an overabundance of feral cats and that we have to do something about cats as well, in particular in the city areas.”
The current RDKB bylaw does not address cats because the Local Government Act has banned regional districts from controlling cats.
“Up until this last little while, we didn’t have authority to do anything about regulating cats,” said Kumar. “I am meeting with the elected officials and it will be up to them to see if they want to address the cat issue.”
Suzanne Martin, owner of Wizard of Pawz, a Grand Forks pet store, said the feral and stray cat issued could be solved with a region-wide tagging system.
“Maybe they could enforce a bylaw were all cats must have collars and tags,” she said. “It’s been doable in some communities; quite successfully where they have city tags for the cats.”
If the regional district does not address the issue, then it might be an issue for the city to tackle, said Taylor.
“You can have a bylaw within a bylaw so we could define cat control within the city limits and not have it apply to the whole area,” he added.
City of Grand Forks’ Chief Administrative Officer Doug Allin said before the city makes a move on cat control, it’s going to see what the other stakeholders have to say.
The Grand Forks Gazette contacted Boundary Animal Control for input, but they would not comment on the issue.