It’s been a while since we touched on the topic of thinly-veiled cat hatred masquerading as academic rigor in studies blaming cats for killing improbable numbers of birds and small mammals in countries like the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Unfortunately those “studies,” which have little relationship with reality, have serious consequences. In places like New Zealand, it’s the widespread government-sanctioned slaughter of felines and the rise of vigilantism by creepy people who clearly enjoy killing cats.
Now that sort of thing is happening with greater frequency in the US.
In Brooklyn someone poisoned a group of at least seven community cats. A man who cares for the colony of strays found the felines dead under his deck, where they usually sleep. The cats were all bleeding from nose and mouth, and authorities believe someone put rat poison in their food.
Lab tests and necropsy results are pending. St. Vincent Feline Rescue and state Sen. Steve Chan, a former police officer, are offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person or people responsible. Cats from two other nearby colonies have gone missing and authorities believe they may have met the same fate.
The deaths have taken a toll on Albert Vincent Berto, a Brooklyn man who has been caring for and feeding the strays for years.
“ It gave me purpose. It gave me something to get up in the morning for,” he told The Gothamist. “ I’m just bewildered. I’m just, I feel lost. I’m so lost right now.”
Meanwhile a man in West Palm Beach, Fl., has been shooting cats.
A local rescue managed to get footage of the man during his latest attack. The video shows the man riding up to the exterior of a closed flea market at night and taking shots at cats with a hand gun.
A cat named Zoe survived a gunshot wound, but the bullet shattered a front leg, which had to be amputated.
Staff at a local rescue stressed that the flea market shooting isn’t the first of its kind. They believe the same person may be responsible for shooting other cats in the West Palm Beach area.
“This is not an isolated incident from what we know,” Gabby Gluck of Furry Friends told WPBF, a local ABC affiliate. “This is just the incident that we have footage of.”
Furry Friends has announced a $5,000 reward for anyone who can help police identify the man in the video footage. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is handling the investigation.
Those weren’t the only similar incidents this week. In Tennessee, three people were arrested after killing several cats and severely injuring a kitten with blow darts. In Hawaii, two men face murder and assault charges after allegedly attacking a man and his sister, who were feeding stray cats in Maui. Alfred Kailihiwa, 71, who was well known as a caretaker of local strays, was rushed to the hospital after the attack but died of his injuries a short time later. And in Rochester, NY, a local shelter’s outdoor cat homes were smashed by cat-hating vandals the week prior, and not for the first time.
Pain In The Bud 