Animal Welfare Professionals

What to do with all the cats?! The hissy, spitty teenager? That healthy, friendly, stray adult? This box of neonates? “No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price,“ states John Tierney, author of the New York Times' article "Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?" Being “the decider” day in and day out takes a toll on us; it frays our brain and chips away at our energy reserves. Worse, studies show that we make different decisions at the end of the day than we do at the beginning of the day when we're fresh and recharged.

So how can we protect our most valuable resource - our minds - from decision fatigue while ensuring #allthecats and #allthekittens get to the right outcome as quickly as possible? Most importantly, how can we empower our staff to make decisions they feel good about and know will be supported?

Join us on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 at 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET for a 1-hour webcast with Dr. Kate Hurley, co-founder of Million Cat Challenge and Director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program @UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

Register here

In this webinar titled Create a Road Map for Your Cats, Dr. Kate will present a map for the general rules of the great Cat Superhighway (hint: there are two major rules), as well as "exits" from the norm. In recognition that even our understanding of the research and recommendations have changed in recent years, there will be time for discussion of the grey areas and how this applies in different communities.

We hope attendees will leave with the tools to create a roadmap that meets their shelter and community needs, trusting that when we put systems in place that remove question marks from predictable events, we protect the collective brainpower of our community, ensure our decisions are our very best, and move each cat along to the right outcome as quickly as possible.

Hi All- If you had a question that was not addressed in today's webinar, please post it here. Our team and panelists are on standby to answer any additional questions that were missed :) 

From Dr. Levy: 

Alachua Audubon, Alachua County Animal Services, and our local animal welfare coalition met a few years ago to develop a policy on cats in natural areas. We all share a common goal of protecting wildlife while managing cat populations humanely.

The attached policy addresses cats in areas that are officially managed for conservation as well as areas that are not managed but may still be important to sensitive species (such as small urban parks where migratory song birds might stop over).

The policy has strength in its simplicity and its flexibility. Anyone can report a concern, which would then be assessed and a mitigation plan developed in collaboration with community stakeholders. It’s been in place for 2 years, but not one cat has been reported in sensitive areas yet. In many communities like ours, cats congregate around human establishments and areas where there is overfeeding, not in uninhabited natural areas.

Attachment(s)

Policy on Cats in Natural Areas.pdf   23 KB 1 version