08/17/2026
Street Cat Project of Polk County
Sheriff Judd's Polk County Animal Control, with the approval of the Board of County Commissioners, has killed 31,449 cats in the last 8 years.
The state of Florida has killed 27,000 Burmese pythons in the last 25 years. Millions of dollars, 25 years, and the pythons are still there - still breeding.
Polk County Animal Control and the Board of County Commissioners has killed more cats - in less than 1/3 of the time frame - than the entire state has killed pythons.
That's nearly 4,000 cats a year, wherein the state kills about 1,000 pythons a year and calls the python management a "severe crisis".
The reason we bring this up is that Sheriff Judd has compared outdoor community cats to the pythons as invasive species that need eradicated.
Killing the cats or the pythons DOESN'T WORK - HASN'T WORKED - NEVER WILL WORK! It is clear it hasn't worked with the pythons in 25 years of killing - they are still established, still breeding and pythons only breed once a year.
8 years of killing cats - year over year and we are still overrun with community cats in Polk County, and the cats breed 3 times a year.
We cannot kill our way out of the Community Cat crisis. Sheriff Grady Judd's Animal Control has taken in 62,429 cats since 2018 and killed 31,449 of them. 50% killed. And guess what, the cats keep coming. How many thousands, year after year before the Sheriff and the Board of County Commissioners admit that killing cats IS NOT A POPULATION CONTROL STRATEGY?
You cannot out-kill reproduction rates Sheriff Judd is proving it in his own County, with his own numbers. Remove the animals (like Florida tries to do with the pythons) leave the others to breed, and the problem doesn't go away, it refills the vacuum space left behind with more pythons (or cats).
And guess who funds this nonsense? Yep! YOU!! The taxpayers fund the killing. Not the prevention - not the humane method of population control. The trap and kill method that DOESN'T WORK as is proven over the last 8 years with cats and the last 25 years with pythons.
We need to stop the cycle where it starts. Stop the breeding. That's what Street Cat Project does. Spay. Neuter. Vaccinate. Return. TNVR. Join us. Fight for humane population control. Fix the outside cats you feed. DO NOT TRAP AND TAKE THEM TO POLK ANIMAL CONTROL to be killed.
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