Janice Poirier says she now feels afraid in her Westwood Lake neighbourhood of Nanaimo, ever since her cat, Morty, was found shot.
She is warning others to keep their pets close.
“His leg was shattered by an air gun,” said Poirier.
“Which I believe is the same as a pellet gun and so somebody obviously had to take careful aim and purposely do this,” she said.
Morty liked to live mostly outside and had been the Poirier’s family pet for 13 years.
“It’s just surreal,” said Poirier.
“It really is, that anybody would want to do that.”
According to Poirier, the cat had been missing for days when it crawled home late Sunday night, visibly injured and crying out in pain.
“He was in really bad shape. He was in a lot of pain,” said Poirier.
Morty was taken to Nanaimo’s VCA Animal hospital.
The hospital manager confirmed to CHEK News that the cat was shot.
The veterinarian said surgery would have been required. Due to Morty’s age and the Poirier’s opinion that the cat would be miserable being forced to stay inside for his own safety, they chose to euthanize him.
“That a cat that survived 13 years had its life end abruptly because of someone’s actions like this,” BC SPCA Nanaimo & District Branch Manager Leon Davis.
Davis said there is no bylaw stopping owners from allowing cats outside in Nanaimo, and this is the first shooting of a cat that he has had reported.
“So I’m hoping that this is not something that we’re going to see more of,” said Davis.
“The trouble with the cat being an outside cat, it will be very hard to investigate if it had been missing for several days. There’s quite a large range of area it could have been.”
Skye Ryan
