Anyone have any information on feral cat removal in Ohio? I called the district 4 office and no one had anything to say about them.

Wormbobskey,

The reason the District 4 office was unable to help you is that domestic or feral cats are not part of your nuisance wild animal license as Ohio does not have feral cats. The Ohio legislature passed a law several years ago that classifies all dogs and cats as domestic companions.

If you want to work with them, research the Ohio Revised Code and search for the laws pertaining to domestic companions and child welfare (they have a habit of tying both together) or contact an animal shelter/control officer.

One law I am aware of states that anyone can release a captured [domestic] animal if it has been without food or water for 15 hours or longer. There is no law I am aware of regarding harassment or trap tampering like there is for wild animals.

So I'm guessing that in Ohio, feral cats have feral people as their companions?

Yeah, they're called 'homeless people' and they need to be removed too !

Good one, LT. I've heard it said that some of these homeless people will fight over a good spot to panhandle. According to the article, they can make more per day than someone working at a fast food place can. Especially if they've got a couple of mean feral cats hanging around.

I was contacted by a man wanting feral cats removed from his 90 year old mothers property. She's worried they may bite or scratch her whenever she leaves her house. Apparently he called the district 4 office and they gave him my name and number. Whose bright idea was it to make them domestic companions? That has to be one of the stupidist things I've heard in a while. The man claims that the cats just started showing up and none of the closest neighbors claim them (they live in the country). Naturally the cats have produced kittens. None of these domestic companions will let anyone near them. I'll look into the Ohio revised code and see what I can find out. Thanks for the information.

I had a customer who no only fed feral cats but invited them in to her apartment. Since she owned the entire multi-million dollar

apartment complex it wasn't a problem at first. Then other tenants got ticked and squealed on her to the health department. This

is where I came in. These cats were just as wild as any other feral cats and I should have had a camera crew filming me as I chased

them around the apartment. After removing the cats from her apartment, I had to go into town and remove them from her office complex.

Oh, by the way, the reason I got the job is because I often had to remove raccoons that followed the feral cats into her apartment.