Sandy Pines Recreational Community kick allegation of cat cruelty into the long grass

The story about a park ranger working at the Sandy Pines Recreational Community trapping a cat and then allegedly leaving that cat inside the trap to die has gone viral. In the meantime the administration at Sandy Pines have responded to the allegations on their website. I have read all the comments by visitors and the responses by Sandy Pines administration. My overriding impression is that the visitors are making wise and sensible comments criticizing Sandy Pines for a failure to act humanely in respect of trapping feral cats on their premises. Incidentally, the wider question is what happens to the feral cats after they have been trapped. They have failed to address that pressing and wider issue as well.

Park Ranger Allowed Trapped Cat to Die in Trap

In this instance it is alleged that the cat was left in the trap to die. If that allegation is true then it would be a crime under the animal welfare laws of Michigan State. The reason why I believe that Sandy Pines are endeavouring to kick the problem into the long grass and bury it is because they classically say that they are investigating the matter.

This is the classic way that people accused on Facebook deal with these matters. They know that social media is very immediate. They know that in social media things come and go rapidly. It is a transient situation. Topics become hot and then they become cold very quickly. They become viral and then that viral activity dies away rapidly. Therefore they know that if they take a long time in investigating a matter the story will be dead by the time they have concluded their ‘investigation’ (is it actually happening?).

I would doubt we will hear from them in respect of the outcome of the investigation. It should not take no longer than a few hours or at a maximum one day to investigate in-house this sort of incident but the days will go by and they will become weeks and then the whole thing will fizzle out and the massive social media population on Facebook will have forgotten about it as fast as they had become involved in it. I would doubt that the police will be involved. The police may have advised Sandy Pines to kill the story. Police have a cynical attitude towards social media.

The conclusion that I have is that people should follow up on the stories days or weeks later and challenge again the accused authorities or commercial enterprises. In this instance somebody should ask Sandy Pines administration in about a fortnight’s time or more for the results of their investigation if, as is likely, they have not been published in the meantime.