{"id":25450,"date":"2024-03-29T04:54:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T09:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25450"},"modified":"2024-03-29T04:54:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T09:54:51","slug":"national-park-service-sued-over-plan-to-remove-puerto-ricos-famous-stray-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25450","title":{"rendered":"National Park Service sued over plan to remove Puerto Rico\u2019s famous stray cats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2014 A nonprofit organization said Thursday that it sued the U.S. National Park Service over a plan&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/puerto-rico-cats-removed-old-san-juan-c380457e1cb6c62cb5bc280404b91784\">to remove Puerto Rico\u2019s famous stray cats<\/a>&nbsp;from a historic district in the U.S. territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The lawsuit filed by Maryland-based Alley Cat Allies comes four months after the federal agency announced it would contract an animal welfare organization to remove an estimated 200 cats that live in an area surrounding a historic seaside fortress in Old San Juan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The organization would decide whether the trapped cats would be adopted, placed in foster homes, kept in a shelter or face other options. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear if an organization has been hired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">At the time, the National Park Service said it would hire a removal agency if the organization it contracted failed to remove the cats within six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Tourists and locals have long considered the cats both a delight and a nuisance, with the National Park Service stating in 2022&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/travel-caribbean-animals-parks-4ea4226b4612645dc26c573e032db2d5\">that the population had grown too much<\/a>&nbsp;as it noted the smell of urine and feces in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Activists have decried the plan, saying six months is insufficient time to remove so many cats and worried they would be killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In its lawsuit, Alley Cat Allies requested additional environmental statements from the federal agency and asked that a judge find its actions allegedly violate acts including the National Environmental Protection Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/animal-news\/national-park-service-sued-plan-remove-puerto-ricos-famous-stray-cats-rcna145568\">Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2014 A nonprofit organization said Thursday that it sued the U.S. National Park Service over a plan&nbsp;to remove Puerto Rico\u2019s famous stray cats&nbsp;from a historic district in the U.S. territory. The lawsuit filed by Maryland-based Alley Cat Allies comes four months after the federal agency announced it would contract an animal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[27501,3365,8322,27500],"class_list":["post-25450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-national-park-service","tag-nonprofits","tag-prosecutions","tag-stray-cats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25452,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25450\/revisions\/25452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}