Over the past two weeks, a colony of feral cats being cared for in the New York City area has mysteriously disappeared one by one. Their loving caretakers are presently trying desperately to ascertain what has happened to seven of the eight kitties that they have been lovingly tending for many years. To say that they are worried about and heartbroken by the loss of their beautiful cats would be a huge understatement.
An extensive search to locate the missing cats was launched by the caretakers; but so far their investigation has yielded no results. What makes the situation even more upsetting is they suspect the cats were subject to foul play.
On their newly launched website, “Astoria7” was posted,
“Prior to their disappearance, we learned neighbors discovered evidence of attempted poisoning (open tuna fish cans laced with antifreeze). Shortly after their disappearance, we discovered evidence of trapping. Since we did not find the remains of any of the cats, we can only assume the worst — they were trapped and destroyed.”
“In a span of approximately two weeks, almost an entire colony of alley cats (except one little girl) has vanished leaving neighbors heart-broken and outraged. These 7 souls brightened the lives of many; not just the neighbors who fed and cared for them, but dozens of friends and family who visited us and came to know and love these cats as much as we did. There is no doubt that these cats met with foul play. Prior to their disappearance we learned that neighbors discovered evidence of attempted poisoning (open tuna fish cans laced with antifreeze. These cats would never leave the alley of their own accord.”
On December 15 the caretakers contacted 311 to find out how the missing cats could be reported. The operator told them they had to contact their local police precinct and the call was transferred to the local precinct. There they were told they had to call 911. But when they reached that emergency number they were told that the police would not take action. This information boggled their imagination, leaving them wondering why apparently no one was concerned sufficiently in order to get involved.
Inasmuch as their colony was registered with Neighborhood Cats, the caretakers would have been alerted by email if Animal Care and Control had picked up one of their cats. But they soon learned that they would not have been notified if a cat had been brought to one of the ACC centers. With no further recourse, they drove to NYC’s Animal Care and Control shelters in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn, looking for their cats among the dozens of homeless kitties being held in these shelters. Sadly not one familiar face was found.
Making this situation even more dismal was a tweet recently posted on their Twitter page alerting their followers that
“ASPCA’s humane law enforcement will not open investigation into our missing cats.”
I spoke with Mary, one of the colony caretakers on January 8. Although one female cat remains in their care who was lucky enough to escape this disaster, she is miserable without her playmates. The caretakers need our help to get an investigation underway so they can learn what happened to their cats, and to seek justice for the seven cats who have inexplicably gone missing. I told her we would do our best to lend a hand.
A $5,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person (s) responsible for these crimes. If you have any information about their disappearance, please contact them at :
- Call or text: (917) 627-4950
- Email: astoria7@earthlink.net
How we can help: Spread the word on Facebook, on twitter, email, blogs, and any other social media outlets.
Meet the cats, and read more about them on their website https://astoria7.org/home.html
Photos with Permission of Caretaker
Ye I totally agree – vets just say what people want to hear which is the lazy option.
The lady I often mention with no concept of cat caretaking is sadly not helped because her vet says dry is fine. So even if I tell her other wise she believes the vet more than me. This makes me so angry at the f**ktard of a vet who has a duty and responsibility to help the animals and not the humans. I would love go yell at him – I told the lady her vet was a moron and she knows I know about cats. Luckily I have talked her into using some wet food. I go up there and bring the kittens wet food. You know she would just have these litters of kittens go straight from nursing from mama to eating only dry food. I had to intervene in large part also because the moms were so weakened and thin – so I bring up kitten food and give it to the moms and the kittens and everybody looks healthier. My message is slowly sinking in regardless of her vet’s message.
My personal problem is finding a good quality meat based preferrably organic catfood source. I feel like most of the big brand stuff is junk food. They love it but you can’t live off fast food and candy as a human so why anyone thinks a cat is happy to eat nothing but biscuits is beyond me, and the brand wet food seems carcinogenic to me. I honestly believe if they eat big brand wet food all their lives they will surely get cancer. That’s why I need a different source of food for my cats pretty soon because they have been on big brand foods for about 2 years now (Lilly around 4 or 5 years) and that’s too long already.
I can’t stand that the vets in the US are lobbied by the big brands to enforce the idea that raw food is dangerous and should be made illegal. If they win that battle and raw food becomes illegal to sell commercially I will be so bloody angry yet again at the selling out of our lives and our cat’s lives once again to corporate profit and power. Those companies think it’s balanced but they don’t understand that the ingredients might contain the right nutrients but they come from plants and all the wrong places so will never ever work in a healthy way. You can’t construct meat out of plant materials. Losers and sellouts the lot of them. Profit hungry rats. It’s not even fair on rats to say that.
Don’t get me started Marc- about vets and their dismal knowledge about feline nutrition. It is simply appalling. They get their education on nutrition from the cat food company reps who peddle their wares and hope that the vet will fill their waiting rooms with the crap (pardon my language) that they sell.
They pander to people who are too lazy to learn about good feline nutrition- saying that dry food cleans the cat’s teeth (UGH)- and that their products are nutritionally balanced and perfect for felines. GIVE me a BREAK!
I even ran across a message board about feline nutrition administered by two veterinarians who claim that cats can easily digest carbohydrates. WHAT is the matter with these people anyway?
So many veterinarians don’t truly appreciate that cats are obligate carnivores and primarily need a good quality meat.
I could go on and on- Marc- I am passionate about this subject. Too many practitioners think that cats are small dogs- and they don’t do justice to their four-legged patients at all. SIGH..
Yes – cats are more ‘popular’ but I wonder how many of those are just home accessories. I’ve always maintained as in my comment above that cats are second class citizens in a household. Dogs are always present on the familly xmas card but not cats. I got a xmas card this xmas saying happy xmas from each person in the familly by name, the dog by name, Daisy – …..”and the cats”. From a woman who allows her 2 ladycats to have 2 litters a year and yet seems barely to understand cats, or at least until I started force feeding her with information.
All those cats in all those homes would make you think otherwise though but I suspect many people get cats because ‘they don’t have to do anything really to look after them’ – and they would have their cats killed the second it gets expensive or tricky. And these people will tell you they ‘love’ their cats. Love is too general a word I’m afraid. It is love with conditions which they are offering. Nothing more. It’s not enough. It’s not empathy. It’s not respect. It’s a teddy bear which moves. Idiots. I always force people to think about how they care for their cats if the subject comes up. Always nicely though. In a matter of fact sort of way. like “ya well obviously if you only ever feed your cat dry food you are looking at kidney problems pretty early on and probably that will lead to death” – so many people only feed dry and their vets say it’s fine. So when I say that in a matter of fact way they get all ansy – which makes me happy because they are thinking. I could go on…. 🙂
Dee I would be willing to chip in or even pay entirely for a closed circuit video cam you could set up on random days and download the data from next time you go there. If they are hidden well which should be easy enough, then you might get that proof you are after. I would be 100% willing to help out in catching them. I believe the cams get better and better now. Main thing is it needs batter power and should record for a good 6 to 12 hours. That would make it pretty effective in random spot checks on your colonies. Or if you have a better idea? I’d be very happy if you succeeded in nailing abusers.
Dee- Thanks for your idea about fingerprints- will pass that along to the guardians. Perhaps someone did save them for evidence.
The neighborhood was safe, and the cats were visited by so many people who adored them- The whole neigborhood is so upset and angry about this.
Yes Lorrie – not knowing is awful. One can but assume the worst and given the kind of creativity humans are capable of when it comes to creating a living hell on this planet it’s hard not think the worst.