Antioch Goes Over the 700 mark in Missing Cats

Just wanted to keep everyone aprised of our situation here. As of last week, the total number of cats that have been reported missing or have reportedly disappeared from pet owners in the Antioch area has reach the alarming figure of 704, with only 53 that have been found.

Please bear in mind, that this figure represents only the number of cats that have officially been reported as missing. In other words, the owner has filed an official Lost or Missing Report with our Animal Services Dept.

Based on studies conducted by the NCPP, wherein only 50% of cat owners will actually physically go through the effort of filing an official Lost or Missing Report with law enforcement or animal control agencies, we estimate that the true number of cats that have disappeared is closer to 1300 - 1400 and this is over a period of only 14 months.

Just thought you still might be interested in knowing that our plight still goes unanswered.

What's going on? Kitty-napping?

To be honest . . . Yes. We certainly can't attribute this many missing cats to anything other than some sort of pet theft that is being orchestrated by humans beings. The fact that the disappearances tend to decrease during the weekend and increase during the middle of the week, plus they happen at all hours of the day, actually about half of the cats disappeared during broad daylight. We have several families here in Antioch that have reported the loss of their entire cat family to this nightmare. The disappearances occuring one or two at a time, spread out over the course of this past year, which has caused these families to experience the tramatic pain of losing their pet, over and over again. For many of these families it is a tremendous emotional burden that they carry on their shoulders everyday, believing that they are at fault.

The truth is, it is our city, county, and our state governments who are at fault because they will not pursue an investigation. Even though we have collected sufficient evidence, including eye witness testimony that most definitely supports the need to investigate the activities of certain entities operating in our area. They tell us that unless we catch them in the act of taking a cat, they cannot pursue any allegations that we might have against them. Even when we tell them that we have witnesses that can testify to having conversations with members of this group wherein they have admitted to activity that, under any law, would be constituted as pet theft. Our government remains stedfast on not pursuing the matter.

We now have information that certain members of this group have "rescued" many, many cats from our county shelters this past year during. If an animal is rescued from our shelter during the last 24 hour period before it is scheduled to be euthanized, the county does not charge an adoption fee. In other words, by rescuing these cats during this 24 hour period, they did not have to pay any fees, the cats were FREE! Our county and city law state that all animals rescued must be for the soul intent to find homes willing to permanently adopt the animals and cannot be for any other purpose such as education or research. However these members were caught, twice mind you, selling the cats to a "B" Dealer, working for a research facility. The county is trying to sweep this matter under the carpet because it most probably will mean a big court case, and the funds for their new building might be lost to the cost involved with a media court case like this.

So, you see, all I can do is to keep counting, higher and higher. Until someone brave enough steps up to the plate, the residents of our county will continue to fall victim to these criminals.

Um, forgive me if I am misunderstanding this, but are these people breaking and entering the homes of these cat owners? If not, then why are the cats being let outside when everyone knows there is a pet thief in the area? I know you can argue for or against indoors/outdoors until you are blue in the face, but when there is a known threat, don't all outdoor arguments fly out the window?

Believe it or not, not everyone reads thew newspaper. In fact I was surprised how many people I still run into that aren't aware of the situation. Our city government and our local law enforcement officials have been telling everyone that was is happening is a result of "common feline behavior" or coyotes.

So, you see, we have our city leaders condradicting the stories in the newspapers and any efforts we make towards bringing this situation to the forefront are pushed aside by those in power.

I knew there had to be an explanation! Sadly, if no one reads the paper, they also probably don't vote, either, so no chance of those jackasses losing their jobs!

How big is the town? Our area had a rash of pet poisonings several years ago, and several of us went door to door. Is that feasible?

Our city is growing rapidly but at last count we were at about 94K, so going door to door is out of the question.