While the current belief is that animal control in NJ is so broken that the rescue community MUST work outside the system we are failing to recognize multiple unintended consequences. The choice to avoid the system as opposed to fix it leaves even the best of cat owners at risk.
What if your cat is lost? Imagine going on vacation and leaving your beloved family cat in the care of someone you trust. While gone one of many unavoidable scenarios play out and your cat escapes. Perhaps they were waiting right near a door when the pet sitter entered and ran. Perhaps there was a storm and a window was broken and while no one was home the cat escapes. There are dozens of odd scenarios that can occur even in the best homes.
You are are immediately called but will not be home for days. The pet sitter is looking but your cat does not know them well enough to trust them and come out of hiding.
What happens when "rescuers" do not report found cats? Unbeknownst to anyone a local "rescuer" lives just a couple of blocks away and finds your now scared and hungry cat. The decision is made to take the cat to a low cost vet hours from your home for care. The found cat is NOT reported to animal control as the "rescuer" either feels it is not safe or that they won't respond anyway. This well meaning person has "wonderful contacts" who transfer cats to New England states that import cats from NJ for adoption. Your cat is "saved" and scheduled to be shipped out of state next week to find a home.
BUT WAIT!!!! Your cat has a home! In fact he has a family who has called animal control and every vet with in 2-3 towns frantically trying to get their beloved pet back home and safe. Every call made is in vain. No local vets saw the cat. Animal control has no record of a found cat. No bodies are found on the streets. Your neighbors are unaware of what happened as the decision was made to simply "save" the cat.
Perhaps your cat goes on to find a good home. Perhaps he/she ends up in a less than ideal home. Perhaps they are so scared that they do not acclimate quickly to a new environment and the shelter ops to euthanize the cat that the deem too difficult to adopt out.
There is an alternative. Rather than opt out of the broken system we need to work diligently to fix it.
The first step is to make sure that there are records of ever cat. Until this step becomes part of rescue we are allowing municipalities, counties and even the state to operate under the assumption that the number of homeless and feral cats is FAR smaller than we know to be the case. This directly effects budgets and available funds for homeless animals. With no records there is no need to increase budgets to solve the over population crisis.
It does not matter if you are the well meaning rescuer or the cat owner this issue effects you. We know the current system is not working. We also know that rescue can't do this alone. The only answer is to create a functioning animal control system in NJ.
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