A distraught East Sixth Street resident sought help Monday from the City Council after allegedly being told she would have to catch a marauding animal in the neighborhood before the city's animal control agency would pick it up.
The woman said she had take pity on feral cats on her block and began her own program to have them neutered and fed. The large colony had been reduced to about eight cats, she said, and neighbors were assisting in their care. But recently she came outside to find a scene of carnage, with cats and an opossum torn limb from limb by an animal she identified as a raccoon.
She said the animal control agency wanted to charge her $60 plus $4 a day to rent a cage and told her she would have to trap the possibly rabid animal before they would take it away.
Still nursing one wounded cat back to health, she said she sees the aggressive animal outside but has no way to catch it herself. She now fears for children in the neighborhood, she said.
Animal control was formerly handled by city employees in the Health Division, but has been contracted out to a Newark agency for several years. At present, the city has a contract with Elizabeth to provide the services of a health officer. Residents must call police regarding animal emergencies (see here).
The situation that the resident describes appears to be one of imminent danger to the neighborhood. Plaintalker will attempt to find out what response the city is making.
This is no surprise, I've called on sick cats or raccoons acting strangely most likely with rabies. It takes them 30 minutes to come from Newark so they want the animal secured or they waste a trip out. I've seen loose pitbulls now and then with no tags and they wont even come unless the dog is caught already, at least when I call police they will try to catch the dog, I believe they even have a kennel behind headquarters until owner can be found or someone from Newark shelter pics it up.
ReplyDeleteWe recently called about a possibly rabid raccoon in our yard on a Sunday afternoon. (out in the daytime, looking sick and disoriented). We called police, within 30 minutes someone came from Newark and trapped the poor raccoon and took him away. At no point were we told to catch the raccoon ourselves.
ReplyDeleteI had a racoon problem when PLFD still had an animal control dept. I still had to buy my own traps to catch them and then animal control would come when they felt like it and take them away, I don't know where they took them but they were back in a day or two, I couldn't understand why you take them a few blocks away and let them go. Animal control told me the type of traps to buy and I purchased a few from Home Depot, my brother told me to put apple and/or peanut butter in the traps for best results. If all else fails, buy a couple of trap and put around the neighborhood, you are bound to catch them.
ReplyDeleteI had no problems when PLFD had it's own animal control department. If there was a problem with feral cats they came and trapped them, and if I cought a raccoon they would take it away also, when I had a dog running in my neiborhood they came out and captured it.I remember the owner was issued summons for the dog running at large, I thought PlFD had a good animal control department. The Humane Society in Newark expects PLFD residents to put themselves in harms way to help capture these vicious animals. we should have our own animal control department back .
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