There’s a certain rakish romance to being a stray cat.
You go where you want, do what you want, hang out with your cat pals, make baby cats and live off whatever you can find or kill.
A Wichita board is seeking to enshrine that lifestyle — minus reproduction and rabies — in the Municipal Code.
But there is dissent from those who worry that the so-called “community cats” will be killing machines that will devastate birds and other local wildlife.
Wichita’s animal advisory board spent an hour and a half Wednesday evening pounding out proposed new regulations to encourage residents to trap, sterilize, vaccinate and release stray cats that they find on their property.
Such cats would then be considered “community cats,” free to live out their lives as part of “cat colonies” of stray and feral felines.
The community cats would be identified by “ear tipping,” having a notch cut in their ear, and would be exempt from capture and euthanasia at the city animal shelter unless they bite someone or otherwise cause a public nuisance.
(Read more: Local News |)