06/10/2026
Ok folks! We have a MASSIVE request from every follower we have. The best part? It doesn't cost you a single dime! Help us and the entire state by reading through the following. Once you've read through it, simply COPY & PASTE the "request" into an email and send it over to the compliance department of the GADAG.
THIS is the most important and powerful way we can all be of help right now 🙏 💜
Responsible Community Cat Management
June 9, 2026
Mark Murrah — Georgia Department of Agriculture
254 Washington Street, SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30334
🔥 email request to this inbox 🔥
[email protected]
RE: Written Comments on Proposed Amendments to GA Comp. R. & Regs. r. 40-13-13-.01 through 40-13-13-.10 — Animal Protection Act Rules
Dear Mr. Murrah and Members of the Georgia Department of Agriculture:
🔥 copy & paste the entire portion below🔥
☆☆(INSERT YOUR NAME ORGANIZATION HERE) ☆☆submits these comments in response to the Department’s Notice of Intent to Amend the Animal Protection Act Rules, published May 22, 2026. We commend the Department for distinguishing “domestic” and “stray” cats, and we urge it to go one step further: to bring trap-neuter-return (TNR) out of legal ambiguity and into a clear, protective framework. Texas confronted the same ambiguity in 2022, when its Attorney General was asked whether TNR constituted “abandonment” under its penal code. Texas answered with House Bill 3660 — passed by its Senate 31-0 and signed into law in June 2023. Georgia should follow that lead. Our specific requests follow.
I. Define feral cats, community cats, and the TNR process
Feral cats — those not socialized to humans — are left entirely undefined by the proposed rules, yet they are the majority of cats managed through TNR. We urge the Department to add to Rule 40-13-13-.01:
“Feral cat” means a free-roaming cat that is not socialized to humans and is not suitable for placement as a companion animal.
“Community cat” means any free-roaming cat, whether stray or feral, being actively cared for by a colony caretaker through a TNR program, including any cat that has been sterilized, vaccinated, and ear-tipped.
“Colony caretaker” means a person who has accepted responsibility for providing food, water, shelter, and ongoing monitoring to a community cat colony at a specific location.
“TNR Program participant” means any person who performs one or more steps of a TNR program on behalf of or in coordination with a colony caretaker — including trapping, transport, veterinary care, or return — and who need not be the same person as the colony caretaker.
“Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) Program” means a nonlethal population control practice in which a community cat is: (a) humanely trapped; (b) evaluated by a licensed veterinarian; (c) if unvaccinated, vaccinated; (d) if unsterilized, sterilized; (e) marked, whether by ear-tipping or otherwise; and (f) returned to the location from which it was trapped, to the care of a colony caretaker who has agreed to provide ongoing monitoring.
The separate participant and caretaker roles reflect reality: volunteer trappers and transport drivers routinely perform steps of the process for a caretaker who manages the colony. The rules must protect the whole chain, not only the person who feeds the cats.
II. Make TNR return-to-field a defense to abandonment
Returning a sterilized cat to its outdoor home can currently be read as abandonment — the exact risk Texas eliminated. Rather than a blanket exemption, HB 3660 created an affirmative defense tied to veterinary standards: more durable legally, and harder for opponents to attack because protection is earned through accountability. Georgia should adopt the same structure, extended to every participant. We urge adding to Rule 40-13-13-.01 or .04:
It is a defense to any allegation of abandonment or unlawful release under O.C.G.A. § 4-11-1 et seq. that the actor is a TNR Program participant who returned a community cat to its original outdoor location following completion of a TNR Program as defined in this chapter, and that a colony caretaker has agreed in writing to provide ongoing food, water, and monitoring to that cat at the return location.
The written agreement is the accountability mechanism. It documents that an identified person has accepted ongoing responsibility for the animal at its return location. That is not abandonment — it is a transfer of care.
III. Exempt TNR holding from shelter licensing
As drafted, the tightened intake rules could be read to require any TNR participant — trapper, transporter, or temporary holder — to hold a shelter or rescue license. A volunteer who traps a cat, drives it to a clinic, and returns it within a day is not operating a shelter. Requiring licensure for any link in that chain would cripple the coordinated networks that make large-scale TNR possible. We urge adding to Rule 40-13-13-.04:
Trap-Neuter-Return activities — including the temporary trapping, transport, holding, or return of a community cat for sterilization and vaccination pursuant to a TNR Program as defined in this chapter — do not constitute impoundment and do not require any TNR Program participant to be licensed as an animal shelter or rescue organization, provided the cat is returned to a colony caretaker at its original location within a reasonable period following veterinary care.
IV. Protect caretakers from ownership liability — with a duty of care
Fear of being treated as a cat’s legal “owner” — and thus liable for bites, damage, or nuisance — keeps many Georgians from managing colonies at all. We ask that this be clarified, but we are not requesting blanket immunity, and we would oppose any reading of it as such. The written agreement that makes someone a caretaker is an acceptance of responsibility, and with it a duty of care. We propose pairing the protection with a defined standard:
A colony caretaker shall not be deemed to have “owned” or “harbored” community cats solely by providing food, water, shelter, or veterinary facilitation, and shall not be liable under nuisance or ownership provisions for the presence of those cats. A caretaker shall, however, owe a reasonable duty of care to the cats in a colony they have agreed to manage — consistent with a managed outdoor colony rather than an owned companion animal — and nothing in this chapter shall shield a caretaker from liability for the knowing or negligent failure to provide such care.
This is the honest balance, and one the Department can defend to skeptics: protection from ownership liability in exchange for a reasonable, clearly defined duty of care. It rewards responsible stewardship without creating a loophole for neglect.
V. Conform the DCSP rules so sterilization funds can reach community cats
Recognizing community cats in Rule 40-13-13 sets up a second, larger opportunity in the adjacent Dog and Cat Sterilization Program rules at Subject 40-13-14. As written, the DCSP cannot fund the sterilization of the very population that drives the most shelter intake. Two provisions are responsible:
First, Rule 40-13-14-.03(10) expressly states that grant funds “shall not be used … for trap, neuter and release programs.” This is not an ambiguity — it is a direct carve-out that bars Georgia’s largest spay/neuter funding source from supporting TNR at all. Second, Rule 40-13-14-.01(5) requires that both the animal and its owner reside in Georgia for a procedure to qualify. A community cat has no owner, so it cannot satisfy this ownership-based eligibility test even outside the grant program.
The result is a self-defeating gap in state policy. Georgia spends a record $1.15 million annually to reduce shelter overcrowding, while Shelter Animals Count reports Georgia rescue organizations recorded more than 200,000 intakes in 2025 — a substantial share of them the offspring of unsterilized free-roaming cats. The single most effective way to reduce that intake at its source is to sterilize community cats, yet the DCSP rules specifically prohibit spending a dollar to do so.
We recognize that Subject 40-13-14 is not part of this particular Notice, which addresses Subject 40-13-13 only. But the two are adjacent chapters administered by the same Department, and the definitions adopted here lay the necessary groundwork. We therefore urge the Department to: (1) adopt the community cat and TNR definitions proposed above in this rulemaking; and (2) in this cycle or the next, conform the DCSP rules by striking the TNR exclusion in Rule 40-13-14-.03(10) and creating an eligibility pathway in Rule 40-13-14-.01(5) for community cats that does not depend on individual ownership. Defining the population here, while leaving it ineligible for funding there, would be an incomplete fix.
VI. These changes serve the State’s own goals
Georgia funds the Dog and Cat Sterilization Program because upstream population control reduces shelter intake, euthanasia, and cost. TNR is that same logic applied at the community level, funded by private volunteers at no cost to the state — every cat sterilized through TNR is one that never enters the shelter system. Texas’s HB 3660 was not sentimentality; it was practical governance protecting a system that saves governments millions. Leaving any participant in that chain legally exposed does not protect the public — it dismantles the system. Regulatory clarity here is simply responsible governance.
Conclusion
Our requests are narrow, practical, and modeled on legislation already tested, passed, and signed in a peer state. Texas drew a clear line between abandonment — an act of neglect — and TNR return-to-field — an act of care completed by a network of participants for an identified caretaker. Georgia should draw the same line. We welcome the opportunity to discuss any of these proposals with the Department.
Respectfully submitted,
(INSERT YOUR NAME OR ORGANIZATION HERE)
