Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Michael Phillips, Representative of Urban Cat League on TNR and Feral Cat Management
5:31:10
·
118 sec
Michael Phillips from Urban Cat League discusses the organization's success with Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) programs in New York City, particularly in Hell's Kitchen. He emphasizes the importance of spay/neuter services and the potential for solving feral cat issues citywide with adequate resources.
- Urban Cat League developed a workshop to teach TNR, which was widely adopted and trained over 15,000 people.
- In Hell's Kitchen, they've successfully reduced feral cat colonies to just two remaining street cats through comprehensive TNR efforts.
- Phillips advocates for increased spay/neuter services to allow other neighborhoods to achieve similar success in managing feral cat populations.
Michael Phillips
5:31:10
Hello.
5:31:11
I'm here to speak for Urban Cat League, one of the oldest TNR groups in New York City.
5:31:17
We actually started a a workshop to teach other people how to do
Lynn Schulman
5:31:21
Tell us your name first.
Michael Phillips
5:31:22
Michael Phillips.
Lynn Schulman
5:31:23
Okay.
5:31:23
Thank you.
5:31:23
Sorry.
5:31:24
That's alright.
Michael Phillips
5:31:25
We started a workshop to teach other people how to do TNR.
5:31:29
The ASVCA picked it up, made it the required credentials to get their spay neuter services.
5:31:36
After 15,000 people had taken that workshop, they asked us to stop changing the workshop as their guest at the ASBCA, which we had done for many, many years, because there were too many people that they could not accommodate with their spay neuter services.
5:31:52
I'm so grateful to be on the podium here with Sassy, who is third generation of people that we started training years and years ago.
5:32:02
There's a hopeful note, in Hell's Kitchen we have no more feral cat colonies.
5:32:06
There are two remaining cats that we feed on the street in all of Hell's Kitchen.
5:32:11
We had access back then to as much spay neuter as we needed.
5:32:16
We got to 100%.
5:32:18
Now we're in a maintenance mode.
5:32:19
We pick up the cats on the street as they are abandoned by the public, which we know is the source.
5:32:25
So we're in maintenance mode, which is a luxury in any other neighborhood in New York City.
5:32:32
So just it's a it's a solvable problem.
5:32:35
We had enough spay neuter.
5:32:37
We solved it.
5:32:38
Now we're in maintenance mode, which isn't easy.
5:32:40
But we're ahead of the game.
5:32:42
If every other group could do the same thing with their colony not their colonies, New York City's colonies.
5:32:49
There's an army, a a TN army out there with pro o work to do this work for the city and and pay it forward with preventing future costs incurred at at animal care centers, but they need the spay neuter.
5:33:07
Thank you so much for your time.