A case study of inhumanity towards animals took place in 2002 when the Akron, Ohio City Council passed a law allowing Animal Control to trap and incarcerate all free-roaming cats. Adding to the injustice, up to 82% of cats and kittens are destroyed the first day of impoundment, despite a law requiring the city to hold them for three days.

Citizens of Akron were blindsided by the Council's decision because meetings took place in secret. After the law was pushed through, many expressed outrage and the Citizens for Humane Animal Practices (CHAP), a local cat advocacy group, took action. They advanced strong arguments against the plan to trap and kill the cats. They also presented the Council with five alternative solutions. All were summarily rejected. Incidentally, CHAP revealed a devastating tape of a City Council meeting where officials were recorded callously joking about dead cats.

Unfortunately, the demonstrations and media coverage that resulted had little effect on government officials. This was not surprising, in light of Council members’ prior indifference to evidence of successful TNR programs in Columbus, Toledo and Cleveland. Facts; studies; evidence; alternatives- none of it mattered. Their minds were made up. Now the cats are needlessly and painfully dying every day. More than 2,500 since June of 2002.

In Akron, Ohio not even a single act of humanity is conceded when the animals are sentenced to die. They are killed with the "Heart Stick" method whereby a lethal dose of barbiturates is injected directly into the cat's heart.

It is too late for the cats of Akron. Unless the current law is overturned, free-roaming felines will continue to be trapped and killed. The tragic irony is: left unmanaged, the feral population will actually increase.

The cycle of cruelty will continue until the American Bird Conservancy and its followers are stopped.