A group that takes care of feral cats, feeding them and having them sterilized, says that Birmingham Animal Control has been capturing the cats and taking them off the streets, which they say is a bad idea.

As part of its recent Safe Streets Initiative, Birmingham has been clamping down even more on stray animals, which included the recent capture of a pig, along with numerous dogs and cats.

The city released a statement defending its animal control tactics after complaints by Kitty Kat Haven and Colony Cats of Birmingham.

“The City of Birmingham Animal Control follows and enforces the City Code Ordinance 6-1-14, which states that it is unlawful for animals to roam at large unrestrained and, whether restrained or not, allows for the possession of no more than four animals,” the city said in its statement. “The City of Birmingham only handles the capture and transport of these animals. Beyond that, the Greater Birmingham Human Society Animal Control manages any next steps.”

In a Facebook post, Colony Cats of Birmingham said that people who feed feral cats have been threatened with fines.

“Several weeks ago we were contacted by our friends at GBHS letting us know Birmingham Animal Control had brought in cats from an established colony we had already fixed, vaccinated, and returned,” they wrote. “We initially believed it was an honest mistake and realized if Birmingham Animal Control caught a cat they legally had to bring in to the Humane Society. We got the first round of trapped cats from GBHS and returned them to their colony and caretaker. And then, there were more cats trapped from the same colony and brought in to GBHS again. At this point we were getting really concerned about what was happening. The colony caretaker reached out to us and let us know Birmingham Animal Control approached her and told her they would be continuing to trap and remove the cats and would issue her citations for $100 per cat that she feeds. We reached out to Birmingham Animal Control, but they never contacted us back. Unfortunately, cats have continued to go ‘missing; from Birmingham neighborhoods like East Lake, Roebuck, Titusville, Crestwood, etc. As recent as yesterday, Birmingham Animal Control was at another one of our colonies in Roebuck harassing their caretaker at her front door. They told her they would give her 72 hours to find homes for each of the feral and fixed cats in the colony. They even tried to take the one 15-year-old friendly cat in the colony from her! Don’t worry, he is safe now. They gave her the same ultimatum and said if you continue to care for the feral cats the first citation would be $100 per cat and if it continued it would be $250 per cat. They were rude from the beginning and tried to bully her into submission.”

Allison Black Cornelius, CEO of the Greater Birmingham Humane Society, said there’s no need to capture cats as part of a Safe Streets Initiative.