Lovers of Cats Will Want to License Them

How much do you love your cat? Enough to make sure your cat is returned if it strays from home? Enough to contribute to the cost of sheltering it while you are being tracked down?

It’s hard to imagine a cat lover who would say no to these questions. Yet there are cat owners who object to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s proposal for a cat licensing fee, which would make these benefits possible, and more.

In the cat world--rescuers, humane advocacy organizations, animal shelter agencies, those who breed and show cats and just plain cat owners--virtually all agree that some sort of mandatory identification makes sense.

The debate is more about whether there should be a fee, as with dogs, or whether local communities should provide the service free to cat owners. As in the case of so many desirable objectives--whether preserving an endangered species or building a museum--the question is: Who should pay for it?

Cats are America’s favorite pet. More affordable and more adaptable to urban lifestyles, cats outnumber dogs. Estimates are that there are about 60 million pet cats in the U.S., 838,000 of them in Los Angeles.

At least an equal number of unwanted, abandoned, usually wild, cats lead tough lives on the streets, parks and alleyways of L.A.

We can thank the existence of dog license fees for the fact that the cats’ situation isn’t worse than it is. These fees help offset normal animal shelter costs as well as the large periodic costs when the shelters take in dozens or hundreds of sick and injured animals. In Los Angeles, $2 of every dog license fee goes to a fund to help pet owners pay for spaying and neutering. Almost $2 million has gone into that fund since it was created in 1991, and about 80% of it has gone to help cat rescuers neuter unowned cats.

Licensing cats is scarcely a revolutionary suggestion. A 1996 survey of 20 communities from Albuquerque to Seattle indicates that cat licensing ordinances have resulted in more cats wearing identification, more lost cats being returned to their owners and fewer cats being put to death in shelters. At least 14 communities in California have some sort of cat ordinance. The mayor’s budget proposes an $8 fee for a neutered cat, $30 for an unfixed one, similar to fees in other California communities.

Cats are prolific: One free-roaming animal and her offspring can produce about 420,000 cats in seven years. There just aren’t enough homes for all the cats being born. Last year about 25,000 cats ended up in L.A.’s shelters. Sadly, less than 1% were reunited with their owners. The city shelters were forced to destroy 20,375 cats that weren’t claimed by old or new owners.

Riordan’s budget estimates that cat licensing will raise about $270,000 a year to help offset shelter costs and spay and neuter programs. As with dog fees, $2 of each cat fee would go to the spay and neuter fund. If only 4% of L.A.’s owned cats were licensed, the revenue goal would be met.

Under the Los Angeles proposal, cat owners would be able to choose among using a breakaway collar and tag, affixing a metal ear tag, implanting a microchip or getting their pet tattooed.

Cat licensing by itself won’t solve the problem of excess cats, of course. But the 1996 survey showed that cat licensing success increased with public education and license-canvassing programs. To reduce cat suffering and death, more spay and neuter assistance is needed, as well as strategies for controlling feral felines. Fees from cat licensing can be the first step toward making such programs possible.