Successful TNR Program in Miami-Dade County, Florida Should be the Standard

Miami-Dade County Animal Services in Florida has a program that makes it easy for locals to either bring in community cats for free surgery and vaccinations, or report strays so that the county can do the entire TNR process themselves – take a look at their simple yet comprehensive report form.

More municipal animal departments should offer free TNR. It is good for the cats and the community. Miami-Dade has even gone a step further to manage their stray and feral cats through TNR; their Tip the Trapper Initiative offers county residents $15 per outdoor cat brought in for sterilization and vaccinations! The $15 payment is contingent upon the trapper’s adherence to essential guidelines, such as “all cats must be treated humanely, with dignity and respect,” and “Once services have been performed and the cats are medically cleared for release, the trapper must return the cats to the location where the cats were trapped.

The modest cash reward may sway someone who has been ignoring a group of nearby outdoor cats because they think trapping them and bringing them to the county clinic is a hassle, or perhaps someone who has noticed the cats but never considered taking action.
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The Tip the Trapper Initiative kicked off in 2019, and that year more than 12,000 cats were TNR’d through animal services. Their TNR program continues to be highly impactful; they reported 242 cats TNR’d during the week of July 25th alone.