Oakmont cat owners will have to look into spay/neutering, microchips and collars with tags if council passes an update of the borough’s feral cat ordinance.

Borough Manager Scot Fodi said 412 Animal Rescue, a nonprofit, no-kill, all-volunteer and foster-based rescue organization in Penn Hills, reached out to officials earlier this year about passing an ordinance that “essentially brings some responsibility to cat ownership in the borough.”

The proposed update would deem domestic cats permitted to run free outside pose a danger to the health, safety and welfare of the public if they are unidentifiable, not spayed or neutered and not immunized.

The proposed ordinance will require residents of Oakmont to neuter or spay their cat if they allow the animal to roam outside.

Cats also would need to be microchipped or must wear a collar with tags. The proposed ordinance addition states the cat also must be immunized against rabies, as state law requires.

The ordinance is still in the works.

Council Vice President Amanda Pagnotta said, while developing this ordinance, every large Facebook group concerning Oakmont was combed through for posts about cats or kittens. During the council’s workshop meeting Oct. 1, Pagnotta showed more than 50 social media posts asking about stray, lost or abandoned cats and kittens from June 2021 until Sept. 30, 2024.

“If I would’ve included cats or kittens outside of Oakmont in closely surrounding areas, there would have been more than this amount of posts,” Pagnotta said.

She said most of the posts were found from one of the borough’s larger Facebook groups, “Friends of Oakmont,” which has almost 7,000 members.

Since 2021, Pagnotta said reports of stray cats in Oakmont on social media have fluctuated — often tripling or quadrupling the number of previous reports.

“Obviously, 2024 hasn’t concluded yet so the current number will likely go up (by the end of the year),” Pagnotta said. “If we stay on the trend that we currently are, by the time we hit 2034 we end up in the 80s for the amount of lost cats, and that’s not including if any of those have offspring.”

Pagnotta said with the frequency of cats reproducing and how many kittens can be born in a litter, the borough should get on top of the issue now.

Throughout the revision process, the ordinance has changed from just verbiage regarding feral cats to all cats in the borough. The ordinance also has been edited to include that if a cat is found, trap-neuter-return programs are preferred only if someone cannot get the cats to a no-kill shelter.

“Most of the cats that have been trapped by local animal shelters have not been microchipped or collared and have not been identifiable,” Pagnotta said.

Fodi said, after the appropriate changes are made, council plans to authorize the ordinance’s advertisement at its voting meeting Oct. 21.

“This is nothing uncommon,” borough Solicitor Jacob Leyland said. “This is something that’s really regulated throughout municipalities.”

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