Karen
Parker, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission, said there are about 5 million feral and free-ranging cats
statewide, and numbers are rising.

Solution: Filed two years in a
row, please consider refiling a “Animal Cruelty, Animal Ordinance
violation surcharge” of $20) to be distributed as follows: $5 to train
animal control officers (already State law), $1 for court costs, and the
rest to help fund low cost and free spay/neuter services (which are
facing budget cuts).

ANALYSIS:
…………………………………………………………………………….
COUNTIES FL………………2008 Animal control cost
Alachua County___________$2,415,794 Cost
Baker County______________$126,190 Cost
Bay County_______________ $806,420 Cost
Bradford County______________$3,815 Cost
Brevard County___________$3,927,602 Cost
Broward County___________$4,339,210 Cost
Calhoun Cty_____________No animal control
Charlotte County____________$654,435 Cost
Citrus County_____________$1,017,796 Cost
Clay County______________$1,440,015 Cost
Collier County____________$1,326,425 Cost
Columbia County___________$230,850 Cost
Desoto Cty________________$350,000 Cost
Dixie County_______________$80,881 Cost
Duval County____________$3,830,588 Cost
Escambia Cty_____________$769,000 Cost
Flagler County____________$157,000 Cost
Franklin County____________$50,778 Cost
Gadsden Cty_______________$93,458 Cost
Gilchrist County____________$33,036 Cost
Glades County_____________$60,081 Cost
Gulf County_______________$103,401 Cost
Hamilton Cty___________NO animal control
Hardee County_____________$164,378 Cost
Hendry County_____________$189,748 Cost
Hernando Cty_____________$1,212,537 Cost
Highlands County____________$636,568 Cost
Hillsborough______________$8,232,248 Cost
Holmes County___________NO animal Control
Indian River County__________$535,923 Cost
Jackson Cty_________________$150,000 est~
Jefferson Cty_________________$17,000 Cost
Lafayetee Cty____________NO animal control
Lake County: ______________$1,980,257 Cost
Lee County________________$4,045,109 Cost
Leon County_______________$1,130,382 Cost
Levy County________________$334,528 Cost
Liberty County_______________No info given
Madison Cty_________________$56,065 Cost
Manatee Cty________________$764,215 Cost
Marion County:_____________$329,628 Cost
Martin County_______________$99,000 Cost
Miami Dade_____________$10,075,000 Cost
Monroe County_____________$947,485 Cost
Nassau County______________$653,304 Cost
Okaloosa Cty_______________$768,884 Cost
Okeechobee County__________$350,000 Cost
Orange County____________$8,410,353 Cost
Osceola County____________$4,528,756 Cost
Palm Beach County________$10,321,651 Cost
Pasco County______________$2,486,044 Cost
Pinellas County____________$5,088,100 Cost
Polk County_______________$2,873,153 Cost
Putnam County______________$313,768 Cost
Santa Rosa Cty______________$457,550 Cost
Sarasota Cty________________$231,507 Cost
Seminole County___________ $255,000 Cost
St. Lucie County____________ $731,535 Cost
St. Johns Cty______________$1,133,548 Cost
Sumter County: _____________$400,000 Cost
Suwanee Cty_________________$95,000 Cost
Taylor Cty__________________$160,500 Cost
Union County____________NO animal Control
Volusia County_____________$1,445.990 Cost
Wakulla Cty_________________$250,000 Cost
Walton County_______________$149,841 Cost
Washington Cty______________$132,101 Cost

Liberty County is composed of just Bristol, so it is only assumed there is no animal control.
Hamilton, Lafayette, and Holmes Counties have no animal control due to budgets.

(2)
Spay/neutering prevents reproductive cancers in cats and dogs. (Most
unaltered dogs/cats will be breast and prostate cancers.)

http://pets.webmd.com/cats/infection-tumors-breast-cancer-cats

(3)
Reduction in animal cruelty: Stray and homeless animal are often
victims of animal cruelty-nobody looks after them-which when reported
costs law enforcement thousands of dollars to investigate and manpower
per case.

Counties pay for animal control, which also funds such
services as law enforcement, education, etc., which requires State and
Federal funds to balance the books. Killing for the most part entirely
adoptable cats, kittens, dogs, and cats as a means of population control
is expense, and cruel. This would reduce County costs and is humane for
animals.

-One unspayed female dog, her mate and their offspring can produce up to 67,000 dogs in only 6 years.

-ONE
unspayed female cat, her mate and all of their offspring can produce
370,092 in just 7 years. There literally millions of homeless cats in a
single State alone. One single pair of breeding cats-one male and
female-considering six offspring survive yearly-produces 2 million cats
over 10 years. This data is Florida specific citing merely a few
examples of the result of out of control homeless and breeding pets,
especially cats.

–Low cost spay/neutering will begin to save local governments millions of dollars every year.

One unneutered male dog or cat can impregnate dozens of females in a month, leading to thousands of unwanted animals.

Homeless
animals get no vet care thus prone to contagious diseases like rabies,
FIV (fatal to other pets), ringworm, and toxoplasmosis in soil
contagious to children. Over a 20 year period, there were 2,455 cases
of rabies in raccoons (reported). There is a yearly average of 13 cases
of rabid cats; 265 cases of rabid cats over 20 year period. See:

http://www.doh.state.fl.us/environment/medicine/rabies/Data/2009/Rabies1989-2008.pdf

Thank
you for your time and consideration of this much needed bill for low
cost/free spay/neutering for the State of Florida to help individual
counties with such expenses.