When the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) needed to account for the continued decline of some species of birds and rats on protected land in Key Largo, they promptly climbed on the anti-cat bandwagon. An in-house research effort, largely based on Cats Indoors! information, decreed free-roaming felines as the culprits, despite the FWC's own admission that they had "no absolute evidence" that this was the case.

This led to a second battle lost on the state level when the FWC unilaterally adopted a controversial new policy that would allow government officials to trap and kill any cats they deemed a threat to wildlife. Fortunately, their efforts to outlaw TNR were temporarily stopped by legal intervention. It did not prevent the USFWS from sending in the USDA to lay traps in Crocodile Lake Refuge in Key Largo, where they remain today and where they threaten felines living in Florida's largest and most successful feral colony located on nearby private land.

Local government officials in Surfside and Ormond Beach, Florida have also been affected by the propaganda against outdoor cats. Feline caretakers in both towns are now facing new regulations preventing the feeding of feral cats. Ironically, Surfside has had remarkable success with their TNR program that was, until recently, supported by those same officials.

The battlegrounds are not limited to Florida. Outdoor cats in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are also under attack. Cape May and Atlantic City have "model" TNR programs that are in peril because government officials have recently been influenced by the ABC campaign.