Danielle Bays, Senior Analyst for Cat Protection & Policy, HSUS

Kristen Petrie [00:00:02]

You've tuned in to the Community Cats Podcast. Ready? Let's go.

Stacy LeBaron [00:00:13]

Welcome to the Community Cats Podcast. I am your host, Stacy LeBaron. I've been involved helping homeless cats for over 20 years with the Merrimack River Feline Rescue Society. The goal of this podcast is to expose you to amazing people who are improving the lives of cats. I hope these interviews will help you learn how you can turn your passion for cats into action. And today, we're speaking with Danielle Jo Bays. Danielle is the Senior Analyst for Cat Protection and Policy at the Humane Society of the United States. With more than 20 years of experience advocating for various animals, Danielle began her journey to “professional cat lady” by conducting trap-neuter-return in her own backyard. Now she works with animal shelters, cat advocates, policy makers, and other stakeholders to broaden support for and increase the impact of community cat program nationwide. She is a co-author of The Return to Field Handbook, which recently won a Muse Medallion from the Cat Writers’ Association. Just prior to joining the HSUS in 2015, she spent five years building a proactive community cat program in Washington DC, and has TNR’d more cats than she can count. Danielle holds a BS in Animal Science from Cornell University, and an MS in Animals and Public Policy from Tufts University. She lives with five cats and a catio in Washington DC. Danielle, welcome to the show!

Danielle Bays [00:01:31]

Thank you! I'm glad to be here.

Stacy [00:01:33]

So this is a very special day because this is our 400th episode and I'm so happy you could join us for this very special episode.

Danielle [00:01:42]

Well, I am totally honored. This is just, it's cat-tastic. 

Stacy [00:01:47]

Thanks so much. So it's been a while since we've had you on, I think we had a little bit of “COVID paralysis” here and we have not spoken on the show, I think, since COVID hit, which is absolutely amazing. And, you know, our listeners miss the Cat Policy Jeopardy game that we used to play with you and Katie over the last couple of years. And so I thought it would be great to have that for this 400th episode. So one of the first states or cities that we really wanted to talk about today was Los Angeles. What's going on in Los Angeles?

Danielle [00:02:23]

There's a big, big shift in Los Angeles in these past few months. So, about, over 10 years ago, the city of Los Angeles proposed a citywide cat program that involved providing spay-neuter vouchers for community cats. And where, it was moving ahead with this. But then some conservationists were concerned about the impact that cats were having on the environment, brought a lawsuit against the city, and it ended up with this injunction where the city couldn't even talk about feral cats, let alone do anything to manage their populations or help those cats. 
 
 What they needed to do was draft an environmental impact report on their program and how it would impact the environment and wildlife. So that finally happened, it cost like almost a million dollars for the city to do this really extensive report, they put it out, got feedback, and have finalized it. And what it found--not surprising to most of us—is that when you have a program that's designed to lower the number of cats outside, you are not having a negative impact on the environment. So it was all good, and the city actually today, as we record this back here in December, are voting in favor of that. So, this would allow the city to move forward with their citywide cat program, the shelters can talk about community cats, they can give the public information, they can refer them to all of the various other groups out there in the city that are working with cats and doing TNR. And it's going to have a huge positive impact, not only for the cats, but for the mental health of all the people out there who work with the cats and love them. 
 
Stacy [00:04:12]

That's amazing. I, this has been a non-conversation over the last several, almost years, I think, this has been going on for, for quite a long time. So it's really amazing that we'll be able to have public trap neuter return programs in LA. Do you know of any specific groups that already sort of have initiatives in place and are ready to go if they get the okay?
 

 Danielle [00:04:37]

 Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of groups that have been doing TNR on their own. There's, you know, Fix Nation, there's the Stray Cat Alliance, and we even, our, within HSUS, our Pets For Life program in LA does TNR with the clients that they serve. 
 
 So it's been happening, but a lot of the, the challenges come with the city run clinics, and being able to utilize those, and just the public outreach, so that, you know, when the public calls the city for assistance or have questions, they can't get to the people that they need. So there are these programs, are up and ready, people are raring to go. They're excited. And I think there's going to be a lot of good work for the cats happening in the next few years there. 
 
Stacy [00:05:23]

Yeah, because when we look at the statistics, doesn't California's still stay up there for numbers of cats being euthanized in shelters? Isn't it in like the top 10 for states? 
 
Danielle [00:05:33]

Yeah, California is definitely a challenge, you know, they have a lot of people, they have a lot of great climates for cats so that they're breeding year-round. And then, you know, challenges that you have with policy that impede the shelters from doing what they know are the most effective things. 
 
Stacy [00:05:53]

Okay, so you just said nice weather, so I'm going to move away from the nice weather and I'm going to move into Alaska, and you said that there's something going on up in Alaska. 
 
Danielle [00:06:05]
 Yeah, I guess some people think Alaska has nice weather. I don't know. I've never been there, so I won't comment on that particularly, but Alaska has a regulation in their--under the Board of Game. So it's a wildlife provision that prevents certain animals from being released into the wild. And so they include some wildlife species, but they also include the domestic cat. So technically, doing TNR would be illegal under that provision. So there's been some efforts in the past to try to amend that and that's going to happen again this year. So in the spring, the Board of Game has these big meetings where they look at hundreds of different proposals for changes to the regulations. And there's going to be one that is specifically aimed at that, to change the prohibition of releasing cats into the wild. So it, you know, cautiously optimistic, but realistically it's a really hard, it's a really hard fight up in Alaska with so many wildlife interests there that are in opposition to free-roaming cats. 
 
Stacy [00:07:18]
 I would think it would make sense, but we will see over time how that all takes shape. What's going on in New Jersey?
 
Danielle [00:07:26]
 Yeah, New Jersey is always, to me, a little bit of a bright spot. Even with all the, the pandemic, and the--most legislatures just really focusing on things that are very specific to the problems that we're having related to COVID. In October, New Jersey actually passed in their Senate what they call the Compassion For Community Cats Act and it passed unanimously. So this bill creates the Compassion For Community Cats Fund, which will support municipal TNR programs. It expands their Animal Population Control Fund to include community cats. So that's more funding for TNR surgeries, which we always know is a big challenge. It also reduces stray holds for cats, provided that there's a pathway to a live outcome. So these are, you think about the, the cats that come into the shelter that we want to neuter and return, we don't want to hold them for a stray hold, when we are just gonna put them back out where they came from. You don't want to have to have them sit in the shelter, just waiting. And it also removes a mandate that animal control officers impound healthy stray cats. So if this is enacted, then, you know, they can see a healthy stray cat outside and say hey, he's doing great, no need to pick him up, and then focus on issues that animal control officers really need to focus on: the sick and injured animals, animals that are, you know, causing nuisances or threats to public safety, things like that. So that's pretty exciting, and hopefully by the time this show airs that will actually have had full passage. 
 
Stacy [00:09:29]
 It seems like New Jersey has pockets where TNR is very active and then other parts where there are challenges and, and a lot of it is due to some of these legislative issues, correct? 
 
Danielle [00:09:14]
 Yeah. I mean most of the policy regarding how we manage cats outdoors is at the very local level. There’s some state law that may cover some of it, but it's really about your local ordinance and what that says, what your local shelter is able to do, and what your local Animal Control officers, the role that they play. 
 
Stacy [00:09:35]
 So how do we find out if our local ordinance has a feeding ban? Is that something that we would find on the website, or do we just search, like, “feeding ban ‘my town,’” or how would we do that? 
 
Danielle [00:09:48]
 Yeah, so most communities you can find their website online, and search for your--whether you have a county commission or city council--and usually in that section, there’ll be a link to your actual local ordinances. They may or may not include anything about, about animals, but often if you find the animal section and it'll outline different provisions as far as, you know, whether you're allowed to feed, feed cats outdoors, whether your cat is allowed to be roaming around at large, you know, what kind of requirements there are for, you know, licensing or rabies vaccinations. Or if--some communities still have limits on the number of pets that you can have in your household, or in your, even in your yard. 
 
Stacy [00:10:37]

You had mentioned, too, that there are quite a few areas that you've been looking at that have the declawing banned? Are there states that have proposals out there or is it just more on the smaller level? 
 
Danielle [00:10:48]

Yeah, declaw is--since New York state passed the declaw ban in 2019, there are a growing number of states that are putting forth similar measures. So New Jersey, again, is another state that's been on the forefront of this, and it's been neck-in-neck with New York in trying to pass it. So we anticipate, again, we’ll be seeing that Michigan, Massachusetts, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Illinois are all expected to have legislation that would ban declawing. With everything that's going on with COVID-19, we don't anticipate a lot of movement in these, these bills in 2021, but what we do hope for is that they’ll start the discussion. We find that a lot of people don't really know what declawing is and they still equate it to something similar to a nail trim, or because it's a veterinary practice that somehow it's—veterinarians all support it, which is not the case, many find this kind of toe amputation to be unethical and not something that they practice. So just having it out there as kind of an education or raising awareness among the legislators. It took five years for the New York state bill to go through, so even if these bills aren’t moving through committees in this year, given the focus on the economic issues and public health, we think it's pretty valuable to have this kind of discussion and build support for them amongst the policymakers. 
 
Stacy [00:12:24]

So Expo is coming up this spring and may actually be happening as this podcast is being released. So is Expo virtual this year? I would assume so, but confirm what you know, at this point.
 
Danielle [00:12:53]

Yeah, Animal Care Expo online. It was really exciting, in 2020 when we had to make that move, to see how many more people we were actually able to reach and how many more attendees were able to participate, so we're looking forward to another great year of online contact, content, and people being able to stay safe and manage their own workloads. With all the social distancing and reduced staffing at shelters, it's harder for people to get away for events like this, so I think it's going to be really helpful overall. And we have some great content, not to mention that I will be giving a talk about community cat policy, and I hope that you all can catch that as well.
 
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Stacy [00:13:25]

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Stacy [00:14:23]

Are you ready to be part of the solution for feral and stray cats in your neighborhood? If so, then make sure to sign up for our next Neighborhood Cats TNR Certification Workshop. A new workshop is held online each month, generally on the first Saturday of the month, but please check our website for exact dates. For just ten dollars, expert instructors will teach you best practices for trap neuter and return—TNR. Learn what TNR is and why it works. We’ll cover getting along with neighbors, preparations for trapping, trapping itself (including entire colonies at once,) feeding, providing winter shelter and more. Take advantage of the interactive format, extensive handouts, and video footage of actual projects. Attendees will receive a certificate of attendance and gain access to an ongoing Facebook group for networking with other TNR activists. The two-and-a-half-hour workshop is led by Susan Richmond, the executive director of Neighborhood Cats, and Bryan Kortis, Neighborhood Cats’ national programs director. To find out the date of the next workshop and sign up, just visit communitycatspodcast.com 
 
Stacy [00:15:26]

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Stacy [00:16:22]

What have you seen over the last year, you know, since COVID hit? As I mentioned earlier, we haven't had a recording since the pandemic hit. How do you think that organizations have been surviving this? What are the things that you're seeing on the good side and maybe also maybe some of the new challenges for us in animal welfare? 
 
Danielle [00:16:40]

It's been really interesting. For most people, the very beginning of the pandemic was hard, just not knowing and, and kind of sudden changes, but as we all kind of, kind of hit our stride and, and kind of figured out what it is, it really gave shelters a chance to kind of pause and, and rethink things. When we're not having as many animals in the shelter and we’re, we're having them in foster care, or we're really working harder to keep them in the homes they already have, it really gave them an ability to think about what the role is and what they want to be and how they can work more in a community-focused way to help people, and not just animals. Because you know, as we're learning that when people are evicted and lose their home, their animals are losing their home at the same time. So how can we help make sure there are pet friendly housing, and that people have the resources to be able to keep their pets, and kind of out of this has grown these conversations about what they're calling “human support services” model. I think I just said that wrong.
 
Stacy [00:17:53]

Human-Animal Support Services. 
 
Danielle [00:17:56]

Yes! Thank you. Human-Animal Support Services, the HASS model, and that is really a new way of looking at, at sheltering with a lot of components that have, that have been around already, of just kind of putting them together and reimagining what that looks like. I'm part of a community cat working group under that initiative, where we are looking at the challenges that the shelters--there's a group of “tier one” they refer to them--shelters that are kind of leading the charge and making these changes, and we're looking at what challenges they have, specifically, in implementing TNR programs, community cat programs, return to field programs. Whether they’re legislative barriers, whether they’re barriers within community attitudes, or whether they're kind of barriers in their own internal policy of how things work. So it's, it really helps, to me, like with community cats because it's, they’re, the cats, when they come into the shelter is one aspect of it, but then it's when they're back in the community where we see the, both the challenges and the impact. So, it's pretty exciting. 
 
Stacy [00:19:08]

Yeah. I find it very interesting, sort of this outward-facing situation, and one thing you just mentioned, you were talking about how, you know, trying to really help provide services, resources, programs to people so that they can keep their pets throughout this whole COVID thing, where the times transport was zero around the country. And so that there are times where shelters had a huge demand in the Northeast especially, demand, you know, for adoptable animals, but there weren't any available. And so as we continue our spay/neuter efforts, which is fantastic and wonderful, we're going to have this question of, you know, who's providing the pets out there, too. And how important are our big shelters, and maybe our shelters are going to be smaller scale. And I think that's some of the conversation at the HASS level, too.
 
Danielle [00:19:56]

Yeah, yeah. Well and it's interesting when you look at cats as opposed to dogs, I mean, people get cats at shelters, they adopt them at shelters, but the next key source is just getting them from outside, because that's--cats are just outside, and it's, it's pretty easy just to open your door and let one in, in many parts of the country. Or even in places where the shelters aren't as full of cats, when people find them outdoors and don't find who they belong to, can just make them part of their family. 
 
Stacy [00:20:26]

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens over the next 5 or 10 years for community cats, and for cats in general in the animal welfare space. I find it really interesting. On the regards to the advocacy side, there are statewide representatives at HSUS, so if there are folks that are interested in finding out more about their local state issues, how would they do that? 
 
Danielle [00:20:50]

The easiest way is, you can send an email to the different state directors by just putting in your state at humanesociety.org, or you can go to our website humanesociety.org and search for a list of the state directors, and that will give you their direct contact information, or you can always reach out to me for any kind of cat issues. I can be reached via email at D as in Danielle, Bays is my last name, B-A-Y-S, at humanesociety.org.

Stacy [00:21:17]

And then if folks are interested in Expo, they can just go to the HSUS website and Expo info would be right there? 
 
Danielle [00:21:25]

Yes, you can go to our animalsheltering.org website, which will give you information on Animal Care Expo. By the time, everyone is listening to this, we will have actually a new name for our website, humanepro.org.
 
Stacy [00:21:40]

Oh, fantastic.
 
Danielle [00:21:42]

Which you should be able to find that Expo info on there as well. 
 
Stacy [00:24:45]

Danielle, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners today? 
 
Danielle [00:21:50]

You know, like we said earlier that a lot of the stuff happens at the local level, and you may not know what your local city council or commission is doing. A lot of times, I don't hear about some of these bad stuff, bad bills like feeding bans or things like that until after they've been enacted. And it just reminds me that we all need to be really proactive, you know. If everything seems good in your community, if you're doing really great work, share that with your local policymakers, your officials, make sure you have connections with them so that they don't--when they get a complaint about cats, they don't have some sort of knee-jerk reaction to enact a feeding ban or something that is not going to work and it's only going to cause outrage in the community. So let’s, you know, let's be proactive, let's build relationships, let's share all the good work and success that people are doing. Even if, even if it's a small thing, if it's something, you know, even on your block and your neighborhood where you're helping cats, you know, share that. Let's keep that positive work that we're doing in the forefront so that we can fend off the negative Nellies out there who are going to complain and maybe get a little bit more response because we've been too busy, not sharing our good work with the people that that need to hear it. 
 
Stacy [00:23:08]

Danielle, thank you so much for agreeing to be a guest on our 400th episode today. I really appreciate it, and I know we're going to have you on again in the future. So thank you so much for joining me. 
 
Danielle [00:23:20]

Well, thank you. I'm, congratulations on, on 400 episodes. 
 
Stacy [00:23:26]

That's it for this week. Please head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. We love to hear what you think, and a five-star review really helps others find the show. You can also join the conversation with listeners, cat caretakers, and me on Facebook, and Instagram, and don't forget to hit follow or subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, YouTube, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss a single show. Thanks for listening and thank you for everything that you do to help create a safe and healthy world for cats.

Stacy [00:24:00]

The Community Cats Podcast would like to shout out a few of our online event sponsors. Did you attend the United Spay Alliance conference in March? The incredible content and educational opportunity were brought to you in part by Marian's Dream, and Humane Network. If you or your organization would like to sponsor content that you care about and that saves feline lives, go to communitycatspodcast.com/sponsor and learn more about how you can turn your passion for cats into action.