When Legal “Clarity” Creates Confusion: Navigating Shelter Intake After the San Diego Cat Ruling

Ask Me Anything #15

Introduction

A recent California court ruling found that the San Diego Humane Society’s practice of releasing friendly, adoptable cats outdoors—without a known caretaker—violated state animal abandonment laws, and mandated that such cats brought to shelters must be admitted and cared for.

In the wake of this legal turning point and the public unraveling of the San Diego Humane Society’s carefully managed image, municipal shelters are grappling with a new reality. This ruling doesn’t just expose one shelter’s failings—it raises urgent questions for every city using managed intake to control metrics at the expense of animals, communities, and public trust.

The court made clear that shelters must accept cats brought in if there are any “indications of ownership”—such as microchips, collars, or signs of veterinary care—regardless of temperament or adoptability. This legal clarity, however, has exposed a host of practical and ethical questions for communities where most cats roam without identification and resources are already stretched thin.

Recently, a city attorney from a major California municipality reached out with a question that echoes in city halls and animal shelters nationwide: How do we craft an intake policy that complies with the law, protects animals, and doesn’t overwhelm our shelters or create confusion for the public?

---

The Question

"We don’t require cats to be licensed, collared, chipped, or confined to their owner’s property. So it just strikes me as quite murky to be impounding ‘stray’ cats that aren’t sick, injured, malnourished, or directly known by the person bringing them in to have been intentionally abandoned by someone… I’m still trying to understand what a workable intake policy is without running into a ton of issues."

---

The Answer

This is the new frontier for animal welfare policy. The San Diego ruling clarified that the law doesn’t ask shelters to judge a cat’s friendliness or adoptability, but to look for objective signs of ownership. Yet in most communities, the majority of cats have no collar, chip, or paperwork—leaving both shelter staff and the public in a gray area.

Waiting for Answers: As legal and ethical debates swirl, countless cats remain at the door—caught in the gray area of today’s shelter intake policies.

Crafting a Defensible and Humane Intake Policy

In this gray area, abandonment laws become especially important. Most states—including California—define abandonment as the intentional relinquishment of an animal without making arrangements for its care. However, proving intent can be difficult. That’s why shelters should implement protocols to document the circumstances under which a cat is brought in. Ask finders questions: Where and when was the cat found? Have they seen it before? What led them to believe it was abandoned? This information—recorded consistently—can help shelters make intake decisions that are both defensible and humane.

Building Transparency and Public Trust

A workable intake policy starts with transparency and education. Shelters should clearly communicate to the public what constitutes an “indication of ownership”—microchips (even unregistered), collars (including evidence a collar had been worn) or tags, evidence of sterilization without an ear-tip, recent veterinary care, or any reasonable belief that a cat has or had an owner. Train staff to document potential ownership indicators and default to intake when uncertainty remains.

But policy alone isn’t enough. Cities need to invest in community education about the value of microchipping, visible identification, and the benefits of keeping cats safely indoors. Public campaigns can encourage residents to chip and collar their cats—and to consider indoor living as the best way to protect their pets—making it easier for shelters to distinguish between truly unowned animals and lost pets.

In the absence of universal ID, shelters should use intake checklists and flowcharts to guide staff, ensuring consistency and legal compliance. These tools directly counter the intake-deferral model—recently shut down by the San Diego court but widely promoted by a consortium of national organizations, including Best Friends Animal Society, the ASPCA, the Koret Shelter Medicine Program, and Maddie’s Fund—which has fueled confusion, legal risk, and eroded public trust in animal services nationwide.

While BFAS is the most visible, policy direction is shaped collectively through informal coordination and aligned advocacy, not necessarily through secret or illegal collusion. Still, the lack of transparency and the financial benefits these groups derive from crisis-driven fundraising raise legitimate questions about accountability and public trust.

Community Partnerships: Lessons from Albuquerque, Los Angeles, and New York City

Coalition-building is essential for creating sustainable, humane intake systems. Real success happens when shelters partner with community organizations that share responsibility rather than deflect it, as demonstrated by Albuquerque’s Street Cat Hub, Los Angeles’s FixNation, and New York City’s Flatbush Cats.

Albuquerque: Street Cat Hub

In 2012, the City of Albuquerque partnered with Best Friends Animal Society and PetSmart Charities to pilot a TNR program. While both organizations would later go on to play prominent roles in the aforementioned national policy consortium—most notably under the Human Animal Support Services (HASS) banner—that advanced controversial intake-deflection strategies, this early initiative in Albuquerque was markedly different.

It was rooted in municipal accountability, public infrastructure, and large-scale sterilization—not the avoidance of shelter responsibility. The program’s lasting success is largely due to the local nonprofit Street Cat Hub, which demonstrated that when TNR is implemented at scale and in partnership with public systems, it can reduce euthanasia without compromising transparency or public trust.

Los Angeles: FixNation

In Los Angeles, FixNation offers a model of high-volume, community-supported TNR that relieves pressure on municipal shelters without abandoning intake responsibility. FixNation sterilizes up to 100 cats daily, lends humane traps, provides public training, and works with local rescues to place friendly cats for adoption.

This approach ensures that owned lost and friendly stray cats are cared for without being left to fend for themselves—and that municipal systems are supported, not replaced. Although largely privately funded, FixNation's work demonstrates what cities could achieve if they invested even modest public resources into such partnerships.

New York City: Flatbush Cats

In New York City, Flatbush Cats has emerged as a leader in community-based cat management by combining high-volume trap-neuter-return (TNR) operations with public education and accessible veterinary care. Through a network of volunteers and partnerships, Flatbush Cats has helped thousands of residents humanely address stray and feral cat populations, providing resources, training, and direct services that empower neighborhoods to take action.

Their approach not only reduces the number of cats entering shelters but also builds trust and collaboration between local communities and animal welfare organizations, demonstrating the impact of transparent, grassroots solutions in a densely populated urban environment.

The Bigger Picture

These examples reveal a common pattern: cities often benefit from credible, transparent partnerships without meaningfully investing in them. Until municipal budgets reflect the true value of programs like high-volume TNR, communities will continue to rely on underfunded nonprofits to do the work that public agencies should help carry.

---

A Note to Cat Owners and Communities: Protecting Cats, Wildlife—and Public Resources

The best thing you can do for your cat—the single most loving and protective choice—is to keep them indoors. Indoor cats routinely live 12 to 18 years or more, while outdoor cats often survive just 2 to 7 years. Life indoors shields cats from traffic, predators, disease, poisons, severe weather, and the risk of getting lost or stolen. With a bit of creativity—window perches, climbing trees, interactive toys, and even “catios”—your cat can enjoy a stimulating, enriched life in safety and comfort.

But responsible pet ownership isn’t just about individual cats; it’s about the whole community. Free-roaming cats, while beloved by many, can have a significant impact on wildlife—studies estimate that outdoor cats kill billions of birds and small mammals in the U.S. each year. This is a difficult reality for animal lovers, but it underscores the importance of both personal responsibility and community-wide solutions.¹

For the feral cats already living outdoors, Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the most humane and effective way forward. High-intensity TNR programs—where a large percentage of a colony is sterilized—have been shown to reduce feral cat populations by up to 85% over time. Unlike culling, which is both inhumane and often ineffective, TNR stabilizes colonies, prevents the birth of new kittens, and leads to long-term population declines. By supporting TNR and keeping your own cats indoors, you’re helping to create a more harmonious balance between companion animals, wildlife, and your community.

The Fiscal and Ethical Case for High-Intensity TNR

That’s why effective, high-intensity TNR isn’t just humane—it’s fiscally responsible. TNR stabilizes cat populations, curbs nuisance behavior, and prevents the birth of thousands of kittens who would otherwise require municipal resources. Over time, targeted TNR reduces complaint calls, decreases shelter intakes, and saves taxpayer dollars. It’s a public policy win that balances compassion with cost-efficiency.

Accountability: Raising the Bar for All

Most importantly, accountability in animal welfare cuts both ways. As advocates, policymakers, and community members, we must demand transparency, high standards, and compassion from our shelters and public agencies—but we must also be willing to uphold those same standards ourselves. That means grounding our activism in evidence, supporting reforms with resources and education, and being open to scrutiny and collaboration. True progress is built not just on holding others accountable, but on modeling the responsibility and integrity we seek to inspire.

Crossroads: The Future of Shelter Systems

We stand at a crossroads: either continue down a path of deflection and opacity, or return to the hard, necessary work of building shelter systems worthy of public trust and the animals they exist to protect.

---

Call to Action

Is your city wrestling with these same questions? Have you helped develop an intake policy that balances legal mandates, animal welfare, and community needs? How have you educated your neighbors about the benefits of indoor cats or supported local TNR efforts? Share your experiences, questions, and solutions in the comments below.

Your insights could help shape a new standard for shelter policy—not just in your city, but nationwide. Let’s turn legal clarity into real-world progress, together. The cats—and the communities they live in—are counting on us.

Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, City of Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.

Stay Informed

For more analysis and updates on the evolving landscape of animal welfare policy, visit Animal Politics with Ed Boks.

1. Footnote:
The oft-cited estimate that cats kill between 1.3 and 4.0 billion birds annually in the U.S. originates from a 2013 study by the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Loss et al., Nature Communications). While the study has been widely referenced, its methodology—particularly population modeling and predation assumptions—has drawn criticism for inflating the scale of impact. The claim that cats kill “more birds than there are birds” is a misrepresentation not found in the original study. This reference is included to acknowledge the role such estimates play in shaping public policy debates, not to assert them as undisputed fact.