{"id":215764,"date":"2026-04-02T08:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215764\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T08:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:38:12","slug":"activists-fight-for-cat-colonies-in-st-johns-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215764\/","title":{"rendered":"Activists fight for cat colonies in St. Johns County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every week for the past year, Elaine Healy has visited the Petco store in south St. Augustine.<\/p>\n

Actually, she visits behind the Petco store.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Healy, along with a group of other cat lovers, feed and keep an eye on a colony of cats that live behind the Cobblestone Village plaza off State Road 312. There are colonies of cats like this one all around the county, but about 13 cats frequent this particular plaza, along with a few others that live nearby.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is so rewarding,\u201d Healy says. \u201cIt\u2019s like I found my purpose in retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the cats Healy and the others look after are friendly, and, after hard work on the volunteers\u2019 part, many are sterilized and vaccinated. They call them community cats \u2014 outdoor cats that aren\u2019t breeding, are vaccinated against diseases like rabies and are keeping to themselves.<\/p>\n

But in St. Johns County, efforts to vaccinate and sterilize ownerless cats are performed entirely by volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearby counties like Duval<\/a> and Clay fund trap, neuter\/spay, vaccinate and return programs \u2014 known as TNVR. Activists want to see a change in how St. Johns County treats these cats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cats \u2013 a nuisance?<\/p>\n

In St. Johns, Animal Control\u2019s approach focuses on curbing \u201cnuisance\u201d animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Per the county\u2019s code of ordinances, animals with a history of chasing people, chasing vehicles or simply running \u201cat large,\u201d meaning off a leash and off its owner\u2019s property, are considered a nuisance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Animal Services Director Paul Studivant says it comes down to an issue of property rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If Studivant\u2019s office receives a call about an animal on someone\u2019s property, whether it is a dog or cat, animal control sends someone to investigate. Studivant says his office doesn\u2019t go out of its way to round up feral cats. But he still believes cats should be treated like any other potential nuisance animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you say one species gets a pass \u2026 that\u2019s really not fair to the homeowners,\u201d Studivant says. \u201cNor is it fair to the native species, the wildlife, killed by feral cats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Activists like Kim Whitaker want to see that approach changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with ending euthanasia at the shelter, Whitaker wants to see the county acknowledge that friendly, sterilized community cats are not the same as feral, untreated cats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wants to see St. Johns County take an approach like Brevard County.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brevard carves out an exception to its broader rules for stray and feral animals by noting that community cats \u201cmay be cared for by one or more residents of an immediate area\u201d and \u201cshall be distinguished from other cats by being sterilized and ear tipped.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Whitaker acknowledges that an approach like that must come with a plan to depress the population of cats living on the streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t do no-kill without TNVR,\u201d Whitaker says. \u201cThey work together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Creating positive outcomes for cats?<\/p>\n

For many people involved in caring for stray and feral cats in St. Johns County, there\u2019s one local woman on their phone\u2019s speed dial.<\/p>\n

When Adrienne Arnone gets a phone call about a stray without the signature clipped ear of a cat who has received veterinary services, the first thing she says is to not feed the cats, but to wait until she can arrive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be there with a trap and really stinky wet food,\u201d she says. \u201cIf wet food doesn\u2019t work, the magic potion is KFC with the skin on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CatThe car of cat activist Adrienne Arnone is always loaded with traps, food and other tools to help her bring stray and feral cats in. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

After trapping the cat, the next step is to transport it somewhere it can be sterilized and vaccinated against diseases like rabies.<\/p>\n

But St. Johns County\u2019s trap, neuter\/spay, vaccinate and return services are few and far between. The St. Augustine Humane Society offers low-cost services, but only a few days per week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arnone often finds herself driving to Jacksonville or Clay County for services supported by residents\u2019 tax dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no government support for TNR in St. Johns County,\u201d Arnone says. \u201cDuval is amazing. We have to pay for it, but it\u2019s very reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

She argues that sterilizing cat populations helps to reduce the number of kittens born over time, which would ultimately lead to less stressed animal shelters.<\/p>\n

During 2025, Arnone says, she and her group of volunteers trapped, fixed and vaccinated 550 cats that were released back to where they were living. With more robust local services, she believes that number could be much higher.<\/p>\n

Support for TNVR<\/p>\n

Courtney Sumner has worked for Clay County\u2019s animal shelter<\/a> for around a decade, and she says she was thrilled when the county decided to launch a TNVR program of its own in 2019.<\/p>\n

In 2024, she says, the county performed more than 1,000 sterilization surgeries on cats, and since it launched, Sumner says, the shelter has seen a steady \u2014 if slight \u2014 decrease in the number of kittens coming in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big deal, she says, because caring for kittens takes up a lot of staff time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTNVR is like population management, and it\u2019s important because over time this stabilizes and reduces the population of our feral cats,\u201d Sumner says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lifesaving program. We\u2019re really excited we can offer this to the citizens of Clay County.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Elaine Healy has been feeding cats that live outdoors for the past year. The colony she keeps an eye on is home to about 13 cats. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today<\/p>\n

But that notion is not universally agreed upon.<\/p>\n

University of Florida professor Mark Hostetler wrote in 2020<\/a> that data on TNVR programs has yet to conclusively show that populations decline over time. He argues that TNVR programs don\u2019t solve the root problem feral cats face \u2014 living on the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me as a cat lover,\u201d Hostetler tells Jacksonville Today, \u201cI hate to have euthanasia. In terms of how humane it is for the cat, it\u2019s much more humane.\u201d<\/p>\n

St. Johns County Animal Services Director Paul Studivant is skeptical, too.<\/p>\n

Studivant has worked in the area for 30 years, and he says he has yet to see evidence that TNVR programs reduce population sizes in the long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this program works \u2014 trapping, neutering, releasing \u2014 that population\u2019s going to shrink to eventually be nothing,\u201d Studivant says. \u201cHow is this working? It doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s just a machine that generates income for another. That\u2019s the way I look at that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A more humane society<\/p>\n

When Adrienne Arnone and her clowder of volunteers come across stray cats, their dream is to get them off of the streets entirely. Arnone has 10 cats at home, and after Elaine Healy started feeding cats at the St. Augustine colony she looks out for, she ended up taking one home \u2014 a cat she named Sunnie.<\/p>\n

But not all of the cats are adoptable, Arnone says \u2014 whether it\u2019s because of their health or their behavior. Those cats, whether they are dangerous or sick, are the cats euthanized at the animal shelter if they\u2019re taken in by animal control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arnone is not optimistic change will come anytime soon in St. Johns County. A change in policy would have to come from the Board of County Commissioners, and commissioners took no action when more than 10 residents came to a meeting to ask for changes. <\/p>\n

None of the county commissioners budged or suggested bringing it up at a future meeting.<\/p>\n

Arnone still remains hopeful the county will eventually change its tune on the notion that all cats living on the streets are just a \u201cnuisance.\u201d But she and her fellow volunteers don\u2019t intend to stop their work anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every week for the past year, Elaine Healy has visited the Petco store in south St. Augustine. Actually,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[502,43323,88005,116,118,117,52066,115,12022,5902],"class_list":{"0":"post-215764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-community","9":"tag-distribute","10":"tag-government-politics","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","13":"tag-jacksonville-news","14":"tag-jaxtdy3","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-public-services","17":"tag-st-johns-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}