Florence County, SC Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Section 6-16, added by Ordinance No. 50-2022/23 on February 16, 2023, establishes Florence County's Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return (TNVR) program to control the community cat population and reduce the feline euthanasia rate at the county shelter. The Florence County Animal Shelter is designated the primary organization tasked with operating and sustaining the program, including community education, though the code specifies that running the program day to day is not the responsibility of Florence County staff; county resources, including staff, buildings, and vehicles, may still be used to support it at the discretion of the animal shelter director.

Under the program, Florence County Environmental Services may humanely trap any cat found roaming at large, take it to a veterinarian to be spayed or neutered and vaccinated, ear-tip it, and return it to the location where it was captured. The ordinance defines a 'community cat' as a cat without an identifiable owner that freely roams outdoors and may or may not be cared for by a person; a tipped ear signals the cat has already been sterilized and vaccinated against rabies at least once.

Community cats are exempt from the chapter's abandonment, nuisance, and at-large sections, meaning an ear-tipped cat found roaming is not treated as a violation the way an at-large dog would be, though an ear-tipped cat captured on a nuisance call is still addressed case by case. A person who feeds or shelters a community cat is a 'community cat caregiver' under the ordinance and is expressly not treated as the animal's owner, custodian, or keeper for purposes of criminal liability. Healthy ear-tipped cats are returned to their original location, while community cats not yet sterilized, vaccinated, and ear-tipped are processed through the TNVR program rather than being impounded in the ordinary shelter pipeline.