The Town of High River is in the process of making amendments to the Animal Control Bylaw.

Some of the changes include phrasing, fines or penalties and the inclusion of urban hens and bees.

Manager of Emergency Management and Protective Services, Peter Genereux says much of the bylaw has been re-written so it's easier to understand.

"This bylaw hasn't been looked at for a while so primarily there was some terminology or definitions that needed to change.  We did a comprehensive review of the bylaw over the past year and had a look at some of our neighbouring communities and their animal bylaws and then cleaned ours up."

Genereux says they've also made it easier for residents to find information on any animals or insects you could find in town. 

"Aside from terminology we also took the current Bee Bylaw and Urban Chicken Bylaw and we've amalgamated those all under the current Animal Control Bylaw rather than having them stand alone."

He says having them all under the same bylaw will make it easier to enforce, and all fees and fines will be well rounded across the board.

One more thing that's changed, is an increase to fines and penalties for those who don't follow the bylaw.

"We addressed the penalties and fines that we had in the bylaw and in most cases those penalties increased." Genereux says "Licensing has not increased, but penalties or fines for things related to dogs running at large, nuisance animals, or aggressive animal fines did go up."

One thing that was requested in public feedback sessions over the past year that's not being included in the new bylaw, is cat licensing.

This divisive topic was held off because it's difficult to enforce says Genereux.

"When we did our community engagement we did get a lot of mixed feelings on it, and although in the community there seems to be support for cat licensing, what we ran into after investigating it and talking to communities who have this in place, is that it's a very difficult one to enforce. Rather than have cat licensing, we'll approach it through working within the community on providing better information for cat owners and sharing what we would like to see in terms of having more responsible ownership of cats."

There will be a public hearing on the amendments held on Monday, January 27 at 3:00 p.m. before the regular meeting of council in council chambers.