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AN ANIMAL WELFARE charity has said it fears for the lives of 16 cats that have gone missing from a single neighbourhood since November.
The Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (USPCA) said that the recent spate of missing cat reports dates back to November, with the owners all living in the Westbury area of Cookstown, Co Tyrone.
Siobhan McHaffie, Director of Operations at the USPCA, told The Journal that the charity first became aware of the mystery disappearances when owners began reaching out for help locating their beloved pets.
“It’s really just been that local people have been reporting it mostly on the pet ‘lost and found’ pages and things like that,” she said.
“Then it turned into lots more people saying ‘well mine’s gone missing too’ and so up to the point where, at the minute, what’s being reported is there are sixteen pet cats that have gone missing, and just in the one area.”
The PSNI have confirmed that they are aware of the incidents, but did not go as far as confirming a criminal investigation.
A spokesperson for the force said in a statement: “Police are aware of concerns circulating online of a number of cats going missing in the Westbury area of Cookstown.
The figure of sixteen cats, the spokesperson said, “is not reflective of reports made to police”.
“Anyone with any concerns regarding any connected criminality or who has information not shared with police, should contact them on 101.”
McHaffie says it is “massively concerning” that such an unprecedented number of missing cat reports have come from the same neighbourhood.
One theory she put forward is that the cats could be used as live bait in a process known as “blooding” whereby dogs being trained to fight are handed a defenceless cat to kill, giving the dog a taste for blood.
She says this would not be the first instance of cats being used as bait in Northern Ireland for this purpose.
In 2014, the USPCA assisted the PSNI in raiding an east Belfast property where three men were arrested and charged with animal cruelty offences, including the act of throwing a pet cat to a pack of marauding fighting dogs.
McHaffie also fears intentional poisoning of the cats could be at play.
“Sometimes it’s that there’s somebody that’s nearby that really doesn’t like cats. They could be leaving poison down.”
She added that it can be difficult to determine whether missing cats have been stolen or are simply hiding away after being poisoned, considering they typically retreat when suffering from injury or sickness.
“If you poison cats, a lot of the time they will tend to just take themselves away off and hide if they don’t feel well or they’re really ill.”
They may then die from the effects of the poison and never be found by their owners.
McHaffie urges people to contact the police if they think cats in the area are systematically going missing because they will investigate.
“Do pick up phone and contact the police or the guards because they will follow up, and especially if they start to see a pattern emerging like that, then they they’ll absolutely follow up.”
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This is so sad. There is something very dark and sinister about the Catholic Church in Ireland. They are like the mafia and think they’re untouchable. Time the truth was told.
And yet, despite all we know now about the physical, psychological and sexual abuse, we still allow the Catholic Church and its institutions to be interwoven with our taxpayer-funded education and healthcare systems.
We still put our weak and vulnerable in their care. Today.
This turns my stomach and I thought I couldn’t be shocked by any of our sordid past at this stage. Who are these people, with such little regard for human life?
Don’t get me started on Terry effing Prone and the Communications Clinic…
@Raisin: Terry Prone, the devil’s advocate.
Sorry, Roisin.
As long as there is no abortion, who cares about young babies and young mothers. Who cares about sewerage chambers. Just think of the foetus. On,y the foetus counts.
It wasn’t God who did this. It was power hungry bad people who used his name to do it. Once again we are shamed by our history. Those poor kids
@Mary Murphy and the Mothers as well as the children
@Mary Murphy: Yes, God only does the good things. The bad things are because of humans. Religion logic.
Obviously it wasn’t god, imaginary sky fairy’s don’t have the power to do things like that
Mary Murphy – well he didn’t bloody stop it either did he, but then he wasn’t moved enough by the rape of all the Irish children either. In fact, what will make him show himself, he did not even step in when his chosen people were subject to genocide.
@Mary
Your “God” doesn’t exist!
Matt I don’t practice any religion but it’s man’s humanity to man that leaves a lot to be desired. What is and was done in God’s name is an excuse to justify it
Carl I don’t practice any religion but what was done in God’s name was to control people and it was done by people.
George I too would love to know. And to think that poor Grace was living in hell recently whilst the people who are still in power is enough to sicken an elephant. Nothing changes apart from tribunal’s
@Paul Fahey: agree completely. But as the Sunday morning righteous would say ‘He’s testing us’.
@Paul Fahey: going right back to the old testament, that very same so called god commanded the genocide of the neighbouring tribes. If ever you wanted proof that religion was principally a propaganda device, look no further
Irelands Auschwitz. A sickening tragedy.
It’s beyond words. Another useless tribunal with no one held to account to come. Tuam babies, Grace and the McCabe scandal. State bodies for health and children implicated in all of them.
Anne Marie exactly. Another bad….. well I’m lost for words on this
I guess this will be an Unaccepted comment but I have to make it. Where is the responsibility of the parents who condemned their daughters to these homes? I get the church thing and the embarrassment for families. I lived it. But the parents who gave their daughters up to these facilities? Why do we not lay some of the blame on them? The facilities that accepted these unwanted Girls provided a service. Obviously a bad service, but their families dumped them. I cannot accept the family abandonment. Despite the social standards of the time how did mothers and fathers live with the denial of their child and grandchild. There is no easy answer here. We can not condemn one group without looking at the whole picture,
@mary: thank you for making this excellent point
What a country.
What a history.
Still the same lack of accountability even to this day.
Thus wasn’t god’s doing because god doesn’t exist. If it did, then its a very sad indictment of the absolute dregs of humanity it chose to represent itself on Earth.
@Daisy Daisy: How do you know God doesn’t exist? Have you a scientific explanation for the existence of virtually infinite matter?
Well if God exists he/she is an evil vile fecker!
So what you’re saying Paraic is that everything we can’t explain, we can put down to a God whose existence we also can’t explain?
@Jimmyjoe Wallace: I didn’t say that at all. But if a God did exist, it wouldn’t be any less incredible than the existence of the universe.
what the hell was wrong with these people? no excuse
And to think they wanted pennies for the black babies…Wool pulled over our eyes
I’m sure Terry Prone is eating crow now!! It’s just appalling what happened to those babies and small children!! Dumped in a septic tank!! All in the name of Christianity!! Poor little mites!! R.I.P. little angels!! I hope this won’t be swept under the Catholic Carpet!!!
The church was built on paganism, before the church we lived in a very hard world were you could be attacked and killed by animals other humans, raped, murder, robed, made a slave etc.. We class our self’s as one human but we are not some men and women would be happy with multiple partners and children from different fathers,others it one partner one father.
The church was probably started by a few good strong clever people, who saw the way of paganism as wrong, with only the strong ruling the land, where people could be harmed at any time, where people starved.
It got the weeker on board, it seen people with one life partner and children from one father less wild due to both loving parents been there to keep check, it seen when people work and live togetter they fight less. With this in the early days the church brought peace to the land and more join as it was better than living day by day.
But over the years it either misinterpreted it founding ways, the evil people who in the day of paganism got in and changed things,
Like with most with power without question or vote leads to corruption.
With this other groups formed, all with the same thing anything that resembles the days of paganism they destroy without though.
Even today any religions group has these views, and today we live more in line with our pagan ancestors that values of the the church.
The only good thing the church has done it has given us a better world, where most live by the law and get punished by it. If not we could be still running around killing one another
@JustMade Ireland:Did you stop taking your tablets?
@JustMade Ireland: are you serious,religion causes most of the wars
I’m sure all of that made sense in your own head as you were typing it. I understand the sentiment but the execution is atrocious.
@JustMade Ireland: it might be worthwhile considering that paganism was not all savagery. It’s an unspoken but untrue assumption that religion is needed for morality. However there is the empirical data pointing the reverse.
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