Shane W Potter

SLIPPERY ROCK — Borough council approved amending the municipality’s animal ordinance to include language for cats on Tuesday, July 1, in a unanimous vote.

The topic first came to council’s attention at the May 6 meeting, when borough manager Christian Laskey said the borough had been receiving a lot of phone calls recently about stray, feral cats.

The calls were not the first time the borough has heard or attempted to deal with stray cats. Previously, the borough would contact rescues and shelters, which would capture the cats, neuter them and return them to the street.

“Initially, you reach out to a couple of cat rescues who said they’d spay and neuter, capture and release, this and that, but those promises have not been fulfilled,” Laskey said at the May meeting.

Laskey told the board he had reviewed similar animal ordinances and decided to propose an amendment to the borough’s current ordinance. It would allow the borough to make enforcement decisions regarding cats if they are nuisances, such as if they make too much noise or are wandering the streets.

“The borough is not interested whatsoever in actually seizing them,” Laskey clarified. “This is more so giving legal leverage to the court system to threaten fines and court costs associated with harboring, taking care of or providing shelter for these nuisance animals.”

One of the causes of the amount of strays in the borough is university students abandoning their pets at the end of semesters and school years, Laskey said.

When the topic finally went to a vote Tuesday, council approved it in a 5-0 decision. Council members Alexandra Tuten and Lauren Christmann were absent from the meeting.