Ginge the kitten had his leg chopped off while roaming Parnell.

We hate having to repost stories like this, but cat owners need to know that there are some very vicious people out there.

This story is not as unusual as we might like to think. People use illegal gin traps to maim or kill roaming kittens, even in an upmarket suburb of New Zealand’s biggest city.

To keep your cat safe from dogs, other cats, and the occasional depraved human, please consider keeping your cat on your own property.

[9 Oct 2017]

The post Auckland cat loses leg to gin trip appeared first on CATFENCE.

This case was in the Canadian city of Regina – although we’ve certainly had similar occurrences here in New Zealand recently.

Something else that caught my attention, however, was that Regina has a bylaw against roaming cats, and the fine for a first offence is C$100, or about NZ$130.

“It’s far safer and far healthier for [pets] to stay inside,” says Bill Thorn, director of marketing for the Regina Humane Society. “The dangers outside and the things they can run into far outweigh any negatives of them staying inside.”

The cat owner in this story is quoted as saying she knew about the bylaw, but she still let her cat roam the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, the poor cat is paying the price for her actions.

The post $100 fine for roaming cats appeared first on CATFENCE.

From today’s Taranaki Daily News:

A kitten believed to have been caught in a gin trap crawled home and left a pool of blood outside its two-year-old owner’s bedroom.

Just after midnight on Saturday, New Plymouth woman Kate Carrington was woken up by the sound of her son’s kitten Bear.

The cat is believed to have been caught in a gin trap, before getting itself out and making its way back home with serious injuries to two of its legs.

“I just saw her lying there and she was trying to clean her front paw because it was quite badly mangled as well,” Kate said.

More…

8 July 2016

The post Kitten loses leg to suspected illegal trap appeared first on CATFENCE.

Jazz the cat came home with a leg-hold trap attached to her lower jaw.

Barely a month after hearing about a Palmerston North man convicted of catching his neighbour’s cat in a leg-hold trap, we have this from today’s Hawke’s Bay Today:

…cats get a bad rap, despite the fact they don’t bark incessantly and lay waste anywhere they like.

They do wander, and it is clear there are people out there who do not tolerate that attribute in the slightest. They lay traps.

As the local SPCA crew described that approach in the wake of a cat in the Taradale area being snared in a leg trap this week, it is extreme.

For this trap was clearly a suburban-based thing – not a snare to prevent possums and feral cats from pursuing native birds in reserves.

More…

4 June 2016

The post Another cat trapped by vicious neighbour appeared first on CATFENCE.

The black short-haired cat was found by its owner caught in a serrated-edge leg-hold trap. Photo: SPCA

Unfortunately, we cannot assume that all humans are decent and compassionate towards animals – including our pets.

This is from today’s New Zealand Herald:

A man captured a neighbour’s pet cat in a leg-hold trap to prevent it from hunting birds on his property.

Paul Parsons was convicted on a charge of using a prohibited trap for the purpose of capturing an animal and fined $500 in the Palmerston North District Court. He was also and ordered to pay $130 in court costs and a $250 contribution to legal costs.

In October last year a black short-haired cat was found by its owner caught in a serrated-edge leg-hold trap on Parsons’ Palmerston North property. The trap was secured to the base of a tree and the cat’s right foreleg was caught in it.

The owner struggled to free the cat from the trap. Parsons refused to assist initially, but after a heated altercation, and input from his wife, he reluctantly agreed, said Ric Odom, chief executive of SPCA NZ.

A vet exam showed the cat had two fractures in its paw, and it had puncture wounds on both sides.

The vet said there would have been “significant pain and fear” induced by the trapping.

More…

20 May 2016

The post Roaming cat caught in neighbour’s leg-hold trap appeared first on CATFENCE.