RCMP investigate after dead cat found strung up with wire from lamppost

By: THE CANADIAN PRESS

PONOKA, Alta. - RCMP are investigating what could be a shocking case of animal cruelty in a central Alberta community - just the latest in a string of incidents that have outraged animal rights groups.

On Saturday, officers were forced to cut down a dead cat that had been hung by its neck with wire from a lamppost outside a store in Ponoka, Alta., about 130 kilometres south of Edmonton.

Const. James Lai said in an interview Sunday that a customer going into a Fields store noticed the grisly sight around 10 a.m. Saturday morning and alerted the store manager, who then called police.

Lai says the dark brown female tabby was suspended more than four metres in the air, hanging from a horizontal arm normally used to hang flower baskets in the summer.

The officer had to use a ladder to climb up the post and untangle the animal's body.

Police are still trying to determine whether the cat may have been alive when its neck was wrapped several times with wire and then hung from the overhead bar.

"There was no other marks on the cat, nothing to indicate it was previously deceased before being put up there," Lai said.

He said the animal's body was stiff when he pulled it down from the lamppost, suggesting it had been there for some time.

Police believe the cat may have been put there sometime between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. Saturday morning.

The sight of the dangling animal was disturbing to Lai, who is a dog owner, and to his partner, Const. Melanie Girard, who is also an animal lover.

"Personally it was upsetting, myself being a pet lover," Lai said. "I couldn't comprehend why someone would have done this."

Investigators are working on a few leads in the case, but Lai is hoping tips from the public may help determine how the cat came to be there, and who may be responsible.

News of the latest cat killing sickened Tove Reece, director of Edmonton-based Voice For Animals, whose members have regularly protested outside a court house in Camrose, Alta., where four teens are accused of microwaving a cat named Princess.

"I don't know what is going on," she said. "There seems like there's an overwhelming number of cases.

"I don't know whether there's a lot of stress (going on in Alberta), but this seems really unusual. Every second day, we hear about yet another case."

Another animal rights group held a rally near the Calgary Zoo on Sunday in support of Bill C-373. It's a private member's bill introduced by Liberal MP Mark Holland, which aims to move animals out of the property section of the Criminal Code.

"Governments are going to have to start to take this seriously," said Reece.

"That may be part of the problem, that it's taken so lightly by our courts," she said. "They see it as a minor offence.

"For most of us, we realize that animals are defenceless. What can they do to protect themselves? That's what's so upsetting and disturbing about these cases."

It appears the Conservative government has thrown its support behind Bill S-203, a separate bill sponsored by Liberal Senator John Bryden which would increase the maximum fines for animal cruelty to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Currently animal cruelty laws, which date back 100 years, provide for a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Members of Reece's animal rights group routinely protest outside the courthouse in Camrose, during court appearances for four teenagers charged with breaking into a home in December while the owners were away, and microwaving their pet cat to death.

Two of the youths have pleaded not guilty to charges including break and enter, unlawfully killing an animal and causing pain and suffering to an animal, and will go to trial June 4th.

Two other youths are expected to appear in court April 3rd.

In 2006, a dog named Daisy Duke was viciously beaten and dragged from the rear of a vehicle until it was near death. The animal was so badly injured, it had to be put down.

A teen who pleaded guilty animal cruelty in that case received a conditional sentence while Daniel Charles Haskett, 19, who also admitted to participating in the dog's torture, will be sentenced next month.