Rowan County, NC Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Section 5-112 creates Rowan County's community cat program rather than a general cat-licensing or at-large ordinance. Organizations or individuals doing trap-neuter-return work must register through a sponsoring organization that the county animal control director recognizes, and groups already doing TNR in the county are expected to identify and nominate that sponsoring organization themselves. The sponsoring organization has to publicize trap-neuter-return and feral-cat information to the public, try to notify the right caregiver whenever the animal control director reports an impounded eartipped cat, and serve as the single point of contact for coordinating TNR activity, at-large cat calls, and community cat complaints.

Subsection (c) lists what every community cat caregiver must do: trap cats using humane techniques, have a veterinarian assess each cat as healthy at the time of surgery, have the cat spayed or neutered, vaccinate it for rabies and for FVRCP (feline viral rhinotracheitis, calicivirus, and panleukopenia), eartip and microchip the cat, and report any cat bite to county animal control. In return, subsection (d) commits county animal control to route callers who report stray or community cats to the sponsoring organization for TNR information, and to loop the sponsoring organization in whenever someone complains about a specific eartipped cat, rather than automatically treating a colony cat as a stray to be picked up.