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Orozco, Norma <br />From: Carla Etzold <carla@calismisfits.com> <br />Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2023 2:31 PM <br />To: eComment; Carla Etzold <br />Subject: Animal Welfare & Community Support <br />Hello Santa Ana City Council! <br />I am writing to you as a Santa Ana resident and a community supporter. I have been a member of <br />the animal rescue community since 2013, when I first started participating in Trap Neuter Return. At <br />that time OC Animal Care had a wonderful program for the community. The Feral Free Program <br />allowed members of the community to trap feral & community cats to take to OCAC. At that point the <br />shelter would then have the cats spayed/neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. Once done <br />volunteers would release the cats back to their homes (the neighborhoods they were brought in <br />from). <br />This program operated for many years and just about the point we were seeing progress the <br />program was stopped at OC Animal Care. In fact, many changes have happened there that is clear <br />that OC Animal Care is no longer interested in participating in community support. At the same time <br />the community is in more need of support than ever, if you own a pet then you know that the costs <br />associated with owning a pet has increased during the pandemic and now after. Veterinary costs <br />have sky -rocketed. In local community pages people can often be seen asking for low-cost veterinary <br />information because they cannot afford to have their pet spayed/neutered at $300+. Those are <br />owned pets, people also cannot find help for feral and community cats. Instead good meaning people <br />are left unable to do anything for these free roaming cats. Sadly this unchecked cat population will <br />mean an increased issue with cats instead of where we were in 2019 finally making an impact with <br />TNR. I know Santa Ana pays heavily into OC Animal Care, I urge you all to look at what you are <br />paying for. Animal welfare needs to be proactive and progressive, not just responsive and yet that is <br />what OC Animal Care is providing. If the animal population continues to increase due to lack of <br />affordable spay/neuter services the fees Santa Ana incurs from impounded pets will continue to <br />increase. We are seeing that now in the dog population, there are more and more puppies coming in <br />to OCAC. On top of that, OCAC no longer accepts stray cats and rather instructs the community to <br />release them where they were found - without an exam and without vetting. These cats are being <br />left to multiply, creating more food for wildlife in return. Spay/neuter is absolutely vital and necessary <br />to keep the animal population manageable, but right now those of us in rescue are struggling without <br />animal control/shelter support and city support. We cannot support the community on our own. <br />If funding could be provided for the community for veterinary support for spay/neuter it would make <br />a huge difference to our community. For owned pets and free roaming cats. We are a very small <br />rescue organization, we do our best to support but with limited veterinary support and limited <br />funding we can only do so much. We need our city to see that this need is very real, to support the <br />animals in our community and the people. We have assisted with 76 cats this year, a majority being <br />from Santa Ana. Among those cats there are many others that we were unable to support. <br />I urge you all to look at providing community support in the way of spay/neuter assistance for <br />animals in our city, owned and free -roaming cats. <br />1 <br />