A Welsh woman, Emma Neville, became enraged when her four-year-old daughter picked up cat faeces on her hands while she was playing in her garden (‘backyard’ in America). She posted on Facebook that she would put poisoned chicken down with the intention of poisoning any cat who entered her garden. The post was picked up by neighbours who quite naturally became very worried. The police were contacted and they investigated the matter. It appears that Miss Neville convinced them that she was pretending and didn’t really mean it.
“I have [cats pooing in the garden] every day but that day it was all over her toys so I wrote that status (I think she means post). I feel stupid now I did it but it was just to let my street know I’ve had enough then it just went viral that [is] it. There was no poison at all. have been harmed at all…..”
The threating FB post which almost got Emma arrested:
However, the neighbours aren’t convinced and one woman who runs a local rescue centre, Sam Murray, of the Usk New Start Cat Rescue, suggested that all animal rescue centres place Miss Neville on their blacklist.
Emma lives in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and she claimed that cats were defecating in her garden every day and that the faeces were all over her child’s toys so it ended up on her hands and under the fingernails. It does sound awful and I can understand the frustration but it would be a crime to poison a cat for this reason. In fact it would be a crime to poison a cat for any reason.
One of her neighbours offered to clean Emma’s garden every day free of charge if she agreed not to put poison down. Emma rejected the offer.
Comment
This is what I would call a combination problem. You could criticise the cat owners because a mother with a child is going to be sensitive to cat faeces in her garden bearing in mind there is a lot of information on the Internet about picking up toxoplasmosis from cat faeces and the consequential dangers to children. But in the United Kingdom, as I’m sure you know, nearly every cat owner lets their cat roam freely in the neighbourhood and therefore they jump over fences and into back gardens “trespassing” wherever they wish. I think cats should be confined to a garden enclosure for their safety and for the peace of mind of the cat’s owner. That concept is alien to British citizens.
I would certainly criticise Emma Neville because she bragged to the world on social media that she wanted to commit a crime by poisoning cats belonging to neighbours. That was simply foolish because if a cat had died through poisoning she would have been successfully prosecuted for animal cruelty because the evidence was all over Facebook in words and photographs. It’s a combination problem as I call it.
The trolls would benefit from a thorough infection of toxoplasmosis, which, if current, well evidenced science is to be considered (which of course it must be) would likely render these empty, tragic wretches into civilised, affable creatures, if not to other humans, then certainly to all domestic & wild members of the cat family.
Poetic & natural justice 😹
Apparently Wales hasn’t heard of Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-Up, and Trap, Drown, Shovel, & Shut-Up yet. They’re slow in the uptake. The rest of the world practices these two methods of permanently solving the problem for decades now.
I’ll contact the poor woman and let her know to spray Permethrin insecticide on her property to prevent her child going blind from her irresponsible and criminal neighbors. That’s another way. Thanks for leading us to someone else who needs our help.
You are the true criminal. The cat owner is being careless and arguably irresponsible.
Amazing you call the other poster a “criminal”, but consider deliberately allowing feline disease-vectors to contaminate a neighbor’s garden with pathogens which can and do sicken, blind, developmentally-disable or kill children to be merely “careless and irresponsible” rather than criminal.
Small wonder the woman refused to allow some inconsiderate, doddering cat-fanatic to “clean” her garden. Removing feces from a garden doesn’t mean you’ve removed the T. gondii oocysts with which they’re likely contaminated (40%-70% of unconfined cats in the US). These persist and remain infectious even after the feces containing them have dissolved–for up to 4.5 years.
People have the RIGHT not to have their property contaminated, and themselves or their children sickened, by careless neighbors’ animals. Ultimately nonsensical “humane” regulations won’t prevent sane people from defending themselves and their property.
A person who threatens on the internet has done just that–threaten. And for every such person there is at LEAST one who will quietly and permanently take care of the problem, and say nothing whatsoever about it on social media.
“Beware the dog that doesn’t bark.”
As usual you totally miss the mark and get everything completely upside down. It is not me who is calling the poisoner a criminal, it is the law which dictates that if this person poisoned cats then she would be committing a crime. As for the cat owner the law does not make her a criminal if she allows her cats to wander into neighbours’ gardens. This is permitted. Take up your problem with the authorities not with me.
Please try and switch your brain on and understand what this is all about.
Au contraire, I missed nothing, and I’ll hold my brain up to yours any day of the week.
The poster you call a “poisoner” advocated a particular course of action, and said he would convey said course of action to the victimized woman. You have no evidence he has actually poisoned anything. Therefore your accusation of his being a criminal is baseless.
And your supposed to be an “advocate”??? My son just got his barrister’s license last summer, and if your posts are an example of what passes for your “logic” he’s chew you up and spit you out in court. Khalas.
I said if she had poisoned a cat it would be a crime. And it is not a crime for cats to wander into backyards in the UK. I am correct. You don’t read the articles properly. You skim them and introduce your bias to come up with incorrect statements.
Deleted because rude…
You were unnecessarily rude so I have deleted it.
Let’s try again, shall we?
I replied and referred to your statement: “You are the true criminal”, which I (rightly) interpreted as being addressed to the poster “Cats 0, Humans 1”.
Again, please clarify–was your above-quoted statement addressed to the woman mentioned in the article, or to the above-named poster/commentator?
If the latter (as it obviously was), who, then, has “missed the mark”? You or me? The answer is obvious, and while it may be embarrassing to you, it wasn’t rude. Khalas.
I clearly don’t have the time or the inclination to engage in this sort of dialogue. As I said before it it too boring.
Admin: I have deleted your rude comment…see my reply.
The reason why I did not read the comments properly because I comment from a database not from the comments under the article itself and therefore I don’t see the chain of events which is why I made a mistake. I also have to work very quickly because of pressure of time.
Lastly, I don’t have time to engage in these sorts of stupid arguments. I don’t play those sorts of games. They are pointless. They are childish. So please stop and go away and stop being an idiot.
Here’s more proof that “cat lovers” like Ms. Braod and their ilk don’t care one bit about the safety and well-being of any humans. Heck, when it comes right down to it, they don’t even care about the safety and well-being of their cats!!
http://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/san-antonio-cat-cafe-under-criminal-investigation/273-537101927
Ms. Neville must not have found the situation too intolerable because she refused to allow her neighbor to clean her garden. Plus, I have NEVER seen cat faeces deliberately deposited on objects not created by nature, urine is a different issue with unaltered cats. I’m inclined to cry fowl on this one.