I see this as a bizarre incident. I can’t understand it. The newspapers have described it as a burglary of an animal sanctuary. However, the owners of the sanctuary have started a crowdfunding plea for money on the gofundme.com website and what they say does not concur with what the newspapers say, not exactly anyway.
They report that their sanctuary has been the victim of a “terrible attack”. They say that two teenagers, one aged 18 and the other 15 years of age, have been caught but they are unsure as to whether more people are involved.
They report that the room in the sanctuary where older cats resided was broken into. Most of the cats that they had are now missing or stolen they say.
They also report that one of the cats was found dead on a lane near the sanctuary. Only one other cat has been found and returned.
The owners do not tell us how many cats there were living at the sanctuary. I find this strange. They say that all their hard work has been devastated by the malicious attack and that their team of volunteers and workers are heartbroken.
The newspaper report, as mentioned, state that the attack on the sanctuary was a burglary. This in itself is rather strange because a sanctuary of this nature is not going to have a lot of money to steal and neither would it have a lot of assets to steal. It seems illogical to steal rescue cats and therefore I don’t know what the burglars, if they were burglars, were intending to steal. That said, if they were stupid teenagers getting kicks from criminal activity then maybe it is understandable.
In the newspaper report they say that the owners found three of their cats trapped in a cage covered in ferns. The cats were alive and they say that they are fortunate to have found them. To be very honest, I find this aspect of the story very strange too. What were these cats doing a cage not far from the sanctuary?
Obviously I am very sympathetic towards the people who ran the sanctuary and towards the cats who are missing and the one cat who has been killed on the road. However, I find the whole story bizarre. I don’t understand it.
The crowdfunding page has done quite well really in raising £4,443 ($5,876.09 USD) at the time of dictating this article. The objective was to raise £1,000.
I’m going to make a very cynical comment and say that I’m wondering whether the whole thing has been fabricated in order to set up a crowdfunding page which is doing very well because the story is the kind of story which involves people emotionally. I hope no one will criticise me for gently suggesting that possibility.
Either that is what happened or a couple of idiotic kids did it for kicks.
The sanctuary is in Wales, UK. It is called Ty Nant Cat Sanctuary. It was started in 1990 and is a small, independent organisation located in Cymmer, Port Talbot.
Well then I stand by cat hate as being the root cause. No cat lover would ever endanger any of their charges.
In my opinion, this is a complete lie on the part of the sanctuary. It smells of sensationalism.
There are only 2 reasons why a sanctuary would be broken into. The first would be to free caged or abused animals (YEH!). The second would be to steal valuables, and I’m not reading that any tech equipment was stolen.
The cats found in a cage was an obvious plant. The one killed in the road was an unfortunate accident (Shame on these idiot people).
The objective, ofcourse, was to elicit sympathy and raise money.
Sadly, it would be a hard case to prove.
It’s fairly easy to get cats.
The rescue needs to go through it’s records. Was someone turned down. Was there a dispute over the ownership of a cat. Have any of the volunteers had a weird encounter.
Rescues have been known to stage fake animal rescues and illness to raise money but this would take the cake.
I’m smelling some cat hate.