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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nEuthanasia for population control does not work, Grady. Polk County Animal Control’s own stats show over 21,000 cats have been killed since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If it did work, there would be a lot fewer Community Cats after at least 5 years.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/TNR-works.webp?resize=339%2C331&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nTNR is the only solution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In May 2023 alone they killed 119 dogs and 364 cats. 483 animals. 16 animals PER DAY<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While that statistic is alarmingly sad, a more glaring statistic stands out. 1792 dogs and 2450 cats were confiscated or brought in as “strays” during the first 5 months of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4242 animals that once had inside homes or at least outside homes as Community Cats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That statistic may be a statement of the carelessness of Polk County residents. But when you dig deeper and see that only 23% of those dogs and 2% of cats are ever returned to their owners, that statistic reflects a lack of urgency to get these animals back home by Polk Animal Control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n High fines, lack of business hours to accommodate the public, lack of proactive searching for homes while in the field, and continued confiscation of ear-tipped Community Cats all contribute to this low Return to Owner percentage.<\/p>\n\n\n Citations, fines, and blaming the public are not working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How about transparency, education, and cooperation? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s time to try something else, as the status quo is not working.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editorial Euthanasia for population control does not work, Grady. Polk County Animal Control’s own stats show over 21,000 cats have been killed since 2018. If it did work, there would… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ba0be3cc-cd76-4786-94f2-05b7e75d4243.jpg?resize=325%2C195&ssl=1\")
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