I posted on here for the first time almost 2 months ago asking if there would be any reason for a colony of feral cats to just disappear. I had been holding out hope that they had just moved on and were ok, but I found out today what happened and I'm just so upset and heartbroken right now.
When they first disappeared we went to the neighbor behind us to see if they knew anything. The cats would hop the fence between our yards all the time, but when we asked, they said that they hadn't seen them either.
Well today our doorbell rang, and as soon as I saw that it was these neighbors my heart just sank because I just had a feeling that it wasn't good. And it wasn't. They found most of the cats dead in their yard
. 3 of them were under their deck and they only found them because they smelled them decomposing. They actually had to saw apart part of their deck to get them out of there. The other 2 were found in their old doghouse which is pretty hidden in their backyard. When they found the 3 under the deck, they went searching for the other ones, which is how they found the ones in the doghouse. There are still 3 missing but I'm guessing its not going to be good for them either. We had only seen 6 in our yard, but apparently the 2 extra ones were the ones found under the deck. The neighbors said they were smaller kittens who didn't look big enough to have been able to hop over the fence. They did say that they appeared big enough to have been weaned though.
They are convinced that they were poisoned and my husband and I agree. It turns out that the neighbors own cat had been poisoned several months ago, but they thought that it was an isolated incident. He was an indoor/outdoor cat (their 2 other cats are all strictly indoor now) and they thought that he had gotten into anti-freeze somehow so they didn't think to mention his death when we first asked about the ferals. Now they've connected them all though. Most of the neighbors around us have cats so we ruled them all out as being the potential killers. However, they told us that there is one neighbor who yells at another neighbor all the time about his dogs. Plus this week my husband noticed that our fence was starting to get knocked down by this neighbors own dogs (the one who yells at the other neighbor about dogs). Then today he noticed that there is a board nailed to that part of the fence to keep it up that wasn't there before and that we didn't put there. Which means this guy either came into our yard to nail it up, or he reached over to do it. Either way he obviously has no problem just coming into the yard to do something without asking us first.
Our neighbors that came to talk to us today are as heartbroken and as upset as we are. They are convinced that this guy dropped the poison into their yard. They can't be sure but based on the fact that they were all found there and on the fact that 2 kittens that were old enough to be weaned, but not big enough to get over the fence, were found dead, that they had to have eaten the poison in their yard. And knowing that this guy reached into our yard to nail a board to our fence makes it seem more likely that he wouldn't care if he was going into someone else's yard. The people behind us are huge animal lovers and their backyard is like a heaven for all kinds of animals. They know for a fact they dont have anything poisonous out there, and they doubt they could have died from leukemia or something like that because they all appear to have died at the exact same time.
We had trapped 2 of the cats and had gotten them spayed and now I feel so guilty for re-releasing them back outside. We've taken in several ferals in the past, but we have 10 in our house now so for once I obeyed the "return" part of trap, neuter, return and its the one time that I shouldn't have. I feel like I could have at least saved 2 of them.
I just feel angry, upset and so guilty right now. How can someone do this? I know not everyone likes cats but to me its one thing to just ignore or shoo away cats but its completely different to intentionally kill them.
The only good news that might come out of this is that my husband is furious, and while I'm also furious, I'm definitely not as outgoing and driven as him and as soon as we finished talking to our neighbors, he got in the car, drove to the police station and made a report. We found out that its a felony in Washington state to kill domestic animals (including wild domestic animals) so if we can find proof or get this guy to confess, he could end up in jail. We're hoping that he'll be dumb enough to just say "yeah I killed them" but who knows. An animal control investigator is supposed to come out on Monday to talk to us and the neighbors. The neighbors took their own cat to the vet when he first acted weird, and he died the very next day. The vet didn't say for sure that he was poisoned but he did say that he wasn't producing red blood cells (I think it was red) and thats a sign of being poisoned, so we are hoping that they can either autopsy the body (although a vet tech friend thinks it may be too late to do that) or that the original medical report will be enough evidence. Also, as much as I don't want to see that the missing 3 are dead too, if we do find them, we're supposed to contact the police immediately so they can take pictures and treat them as evidence. I really, really hope that something comes out of this.
I wish I could have just continued to be blissfully ignorant. I was sad that they had disappeared but it was so much easier to just think that they had moved on and found a better place than to think that someone intentionally killed them. I honestly don't even know how to stop crying about this right now
.
When they first disappeared we went to the neighbor behind us to see if they knew anything. The cats would hop the fence between our yards all the time, but when we asked, they said that they hadn't seen them either.
Well today our doorbell rang, and as soon as I saw that it was these neighbors my heart just sank because I just had a feeling that it wasn't good. And it wasn't. They found most of the cats dead in their yard
They are convinced that they were poisoned and my husband and I agree. It turns out that the neighbors own cat had been poisoned several months ago, but they thought that it was an isolated incident. He was an indoor/outdoor cat (their 2 other cats are all strictly indoor now) and they thought that he had gotten into anti-freeze somehow so they didn't think to mention his death when we first asked about the ferals. Now they've connected them all though. Most of the neighbors around us have cats so we ruled them all out as being the potential killers. However, they told us that there is one neighbor who yells at another neighbor all the time about his dogs. Plus this week my husband noticed that our fence was starting to get knocked down by this neighbors own dogs (the one who yells at the other neighbor about dogs). Then today he noticed that there is a board nailed to that part of the fence to keep it up that wasn't there before and that we didn't put there. Which means this guy either came into our yard to nail it up, or he reached over to do it. Either way he obviously has no problem just coming into the yard to do something without asking us first.
Our neighbors that came to talk to us today are as heartbroken and as upset as we are. They are convinced that this guy dropped the poison into their yard. They can't be sure but based on the fact that they were all found there and on the fact that 2 kittens that were old enough to be weaned, but not big enough to get over the fence, were found dead, that they had to have eaten the poison in their yard. And knowing that this guy reached into our yard to nail a board to our fence makes it seem more likely that he wouldn't care if he was going into someone else's yard. The people behind us are huge animal lovers and their backyard is like a heaven for all kinds of animals. They know for a fact they dont have anything poisonous out there, and they doubt they could have died from leukemia or something like that because they all appear to have died at the exact same time.
We had trapped 2 of the cats and had gotten them spayed and now I feel so guilty for re-releasing them back outside. We've taken in several ferals in the past, but we have 10 in our house now so for once I obeyed the "return" part of trap, neuter, return and its the one time that I shouldn't have. I feel like I could have at least saved 2 of them.
I just feel angry, upset and so guilty right now. How can someone do this? I know not everyone likes cats but to me its one thing to just ignore or shoo away cats but its completely different to intentionally kill them.
The only good news that might come out of this is that my husband is furious, and while I'm also furious, I'm definitely not as outgoing and driven as him and as soon as we finished talking to our neighbors, he got in the car, drove to the police station and made a report. We found out that its a felony in Washington state to kill domestic animals (including wild domestic animals) so if we can find proof or get this guy to confess, he could end up in jail. We're hoping that he'll be dumb enough to just say "yeah I killed them" but who knows. An animal control investigator is supposed to come out on Monday to talk to us and the neighbors. The neighbors took their own cat to the vet when he first acted weird, and he died the very next day. The vet didn't say for sure that he was poisoned but he did say that he wasn't producing red blood cells (I think it was red) and thats a sign of being poisoned, so we are hoping that they can either autopsy the body (although a vet tech friend thinks it may be too late to do that) or that the original medical report will be enough evidence. Also, as much as I don't want to see that the missing 3 are dead too, if we do find them, we're supposed to contact the police immediately so they can take pictures and treat them as evidence. I really, really hope that something comes out of this.
I wish I could have just continued to be blissfully ignorant. I was sad that they had disappeared but it was so much easier to just think that they had moved on and found a better place than to think that someone intentionally killed them. I honestly don't even know how to stop crying about this right now