Delaware Code Title 16. Health and Safety § 3001F. Definitions

(1) “Animal shelter” means a public or private facility which includes a physical structure that provides temporary or permanent shelter to stray, abandoned, abused, or owner-surrendered animals and that is operated, owned, or maintained by a duly incorporated humane society, animal welfare society, or other nonprofit organization for the purpose of providing for and promoting the welfare, protection, and humane treatment of animals.  “Animal shelter” shall not include individuals providing temporary foster care to animals in their home or to animal rescue groups sheltering animals on an individual's private property.

(2) “Business day” means each day the shelter is open to the public for reclamation and adoption.

(3) “Department” means the Department of Health and Social Services or its duly authorized representatives.

(4) “Ear-tip” means the removal of approximately a quarter-inch off the tip of a cat's left ear while the cat is anesthetized to help identify the cat as having been sterilized and vaccinated for rabies at the time of ear-tipping.

(5) “Free-roaming cat program” means a program in which visibly healthy cats admitted to a shelter, not placed for adoption, and lacking discernible owner identification, are sterilized, vaccinated against rabies, ear-tipped, and returned to a safe location where they were found or, if necessary, appropriately relocated.  However, no free-roaming cat or feral cat shall be relocated to public lands managed for wildlife or outdoor recreation activities, including but not limited to lands owned or managed by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Delaware Department of Agriculture, the National Park Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife or to lands recognized to be located within coastal migratory bird flyways.

(6) “Intake” means the number of live animals for which an animal shelter assumes custody and are admitted for temporary shelter and care.  Intake includes all animals admitted to the shelter, foster care, or a satellite location.

(7) “Isolation” means the physical separation and confinement of an animal or group of animals who are infected with a communicable disease from nonisolated animals to prevent or limit the transmission of the disease.

(8) “Licensed veterinarian” means a veterinarian licensed to practice veterinary medicine pursuant to Title 24.

(9) “Licensed veterinary technician” means an individual licensed as a veterinary technician pursuant to Title 24.

(10) “Quarantine” means the physical separation and confinement of an animal or group of animals who have or may have been exposed to a contagious disease and who do not show signs or symptoms of communicable disease from nonquarantined animals to prevent or limit the transmission of the disease.

(11) “Return to field” means a program whereby community cats that have been admitted to an animal shelter are returned to the place they were found after being processed as an intake, sterilized, ear-tipped, and vaccinated against rabies.