Pottstown, PA Animal Ordinances: Cat Rules (2026)

Section 205, Trap-Neuter-Return Program, authorizes animal rescue or welfare organizations and animal control to run a trap-neuter-return program for feral cats that includes rabies vaccination and ear-tipping when the cats are trapped and neutered, and defines trap-neuter-return as a nonlethal population-control approach where feral cats are humanely trapped, sterilized, vaccinated, ear-tipped and returned to where they were trapped. Section 206, Feral Cat Caregivers, lets any volunteer who traps, neuters, vaccinates, feeds, shelters or provides medical care for a feral cat carry out trap-neuter-return at their own expense, provided the caregiver vaccinates and ear-tips the cat at the time of sterilization.

An ear-tipped feral cat may not be removed by animal control unless it needs veterinary care, and a caregiver who returns a cat under the program is deemed not to have abandoned it, protecting caregivers from the Chapter 2 abandonment prohibition in Section 208. Section 101's definitions make the caregiver framework work: the Code defines OWNER as a person owning, leasing, occupying or having charge of premises within the Borough, then expressly states that the definition of owner does not include a feral cat caregiver, so a caregiver who complies with Section 206 is not treated as the animal's owner for purposes of the general at-large and confinement duties in Sections 103 through 105.