Kitty bitter: Woman fined $525 for off-leash cats

Kitty bitter: Woman fined $525 for off-leash cats
Palm Beach Post, Florida - September 21, 2006
By Daphne Duret
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

STUART — Silver kittens shook furiously from Ellie Booth's ears Wednesday morning as she stood up, slung her leather kitty cat purse over her shoulder and scowled at the Martin County Animal Control officers walking out of the courtroom.

"Come on, guys, have a heart!" she said to their backs. "Martin County needs to get into the 21st century!"

In the defendant's chair, Kristen Nielander hung her head and sobbed. Five other women, cat lovers who had come to the Martin County Courthouse looking for victory against the county's controversial leash law, shrugged and wiped tears from their own eyes.

They had hoped Wednesday's trial would clear Nielander of having to pay fines for caring for five stray cats animal control workers trapped in March. Instead, Martin County Judge Kathleen Roberts sided with animal control workers, saying the fact that Nielander claimed the strays at the humane society — even if she thought she was saving them from being euthanized — made her liable for $525 in fines for not keeping them on leashes.

The five cats animal control workers caught in March were part of a colony of 25 feral cats Nielander has fed and cared for in Jensen Beach over the past three years.

Nielander and the other cat lovers in court Wednesday said they use the Trap-Neuter-Release method, or TNR, to control the feral cat populations they care for throughout the county. Nielander said she has paid to spay and neuter most of the cats in her colony, reducing the population from 60 to 25 cats.

Her trial Wednesday rested on the question of whether her care for the feral cats made her their owner. County animal control workers said in their eyes, it did. They said she would not have had to pay the fine had she left the cats at the shelter.

"The animal control unit doesn't recognize feral. If you feed them, you own them," officer Karen Kneubehl testified.

Maris Sine, a member of the Hobe Sound Animal Protection League and president of Domino's House, a no-kill animal shelter in Palm City, has supported Nielander throughout her fight against the fine. She and others, like Booth, say the leash law is archaic and have tried to have cats exempted. So far those efforts have failed.

"Now people will leave the cats at the shelter because they're afraid they'll get fined," Sine said after the verdict. "Every stray or homeless cat is now at risk."

As for Nielander, she said she doesn't regret the decision she made. Four of the cats now live at Domino's House. The fifth has been adopted. She and her attorney, Steve Glucksman, said they haven't decided whether they will appeal.

"All I know is I'm going to keep fighting," Nielander said.