There is a new type of horror escalating amongst the cat populations. Previously known as the half cat phenomena, the horrors have taken a darker twist with the discovery of mysteriously shaved cats and the bloodless bodies of cats missing their heads and tails. Mix this with an extraordinarily high number of mysteriously vanishing cats without bodies and one has to wonder what the hell is going on with cats.
In 2016 cats started coming home with mysterious patches of shaved fur.
NEW Zealand
“ …it is hard enough to worm a cat, let alone hold one still while it was partially shaved”“…both times it's been around their backsides, and that's just disturbing"
“…we only let her out at night now because it’s never happened at night”
“…the very next night he returned home with another shaved spot closer to his tail at the bottom of his back”
“…the third time it looked as if someone grabbed his tail and tried to cut it clean off, and there were clear shaven marks at the base of his tail.”
“…it’s a pretty clean shave, they did a pretty good job holding my cat down it must’ve been a two-man job”.
UK
“…her collar was stretched too”
British Columbia
“…social media has found others in the area had similar experiences”
USA
"...a bizarre case that so far has police and residents stumped, cats returned with their genital areas shaved."
The Details
A demon barber in the Cotswolds UK has been shaving the fur off domestic cats. John, whose ginger tabby Beau has been shaved four times, said: "It's ridiculous, who would go around doing this kind of thing? I'm sure it's taking a real toll on the cat now, the poor thing must be traumatised. I'm surprised she still wants to go outside."
The most recent attack involved Lysetta Bray’s cat Tippi, who has been shaved twice in the past few weeks, and four times since November. Lysetta said: "The first incident was before Christmas - she came home with a patch shaved from her belly to her leg. Then it happened again a week later. On Thursday she was missing in the morning and when she came in she acted as though she was sore. Her collar was stretched too - it may have been that someone tried to grab her, although it could be that she got it caught on something.
Mandy, who lives around the corner, said her three-year-old black and white cat, Treacle, has been shaved three times in four months, leaving her with painful patches. She said: "I'm just mystified as to why someone would do this, it's sick. We think it must be the same person doing it. Now it's happened to a cat owned by an old woman just around the corner. It's getting worse and worse." Mandy added that “timid" Treacle was also shaved last year, and said the cat now seems traumatised and scared to leave the house.
UK Stroud District Council Animal Welfare Service said: "We have received a report from a member of public in France Lynch that their cat has returned home with a shaved patch on its side. They say that this isn't the first time it has happened as the cat returned home in November, December and three weeks ago with similar shaved patches.
In British Columbia Tabby suddenly went from merely ignoring other members of the family to actively hissing at them and refusing to eat, her owner said “I managed to pick her up and found a bare patch on her belly in almost a perfect square,” When Tabby came back a third time with what looked to be another shaven area on her belly – the second time her upper legs and base of her tail were shorn bare – an event which also saw her nipples cut, Yarjau put a call out on social media about the situation, and found others in her area had similar experiences.
Vance Assu, who lives around the corner on Beaver Lodge Road, says his four-year-old cat Twilight has also been through this. Like the first time Yarjau noticed Tabby acting strange, Assu says it started earlier this year, “in February or March.” Twilight suddenly came home one evening with “a strange mark on his abdomen on his right side,” Assu says. “It looked like a perfectly shaved box shape.” The very next night, Twilight returned home with another shaved spot closer to his tail at the bottom of his back. A third time, Assu says, “it looked as if someone grabbed his tail and tried to cut it clean off, and there were clear shaven marks at the base of his tail.” “It’s a pretty clean shave,” she said. “They did a pretty good job holding my cat down. It must’ve been a two-man job. She won’t come up to people. She’s not one of those cats, whoever it is must be luring her with food so they can do this to her.” Whatever the reason for this disturbing trend, Yarjau says, she just wants the community to be aware that this is happening. “We only let her out at night now,” she says, “because it’s never happened at night. She’s not allowed to wander during the day anymore, because one day she just might not come back.”
A New Zealand Kapiti woman wants answers after her cat returned home partially shaved, twice, in the space of two months. Rebecca Beedell, who lives in Raumati South, said her long-haired tabby Fat Cat returned home with its tummy, back legs, and tail partially shaved a fortnight ago. Beedell said she spoke to a friend living about 10 houses away whose cat had been shaved too. Beedell had heard from another cat owner several kilometres away who had the same thing happen to his feline. This was not the first time Fat Cat had returned home shaved, Beedell said. The second time there was no doubt. Fat Cat's shaved areas were growing back on Friday, but there were clear, square edges to the cuts. Beedell said she had no idea why her cats had been shaved, but wanted to know. It was hard enough to worm a cat, let alone hold one still while it was partially shaved, both my cats, both times it's been around their backsides, and that's just disturbing."
Waynesboro VA In a bizarre case that so far has police and residents stumped, at least seven cats have been shaved. Residents say cats have been shaved in the underbelly, groin and leg areas and appears the shaving was done with a razor of some kind, the cats were not otherwise harmed. The cats are clearly pets and not stray or feral cats, the cats are wearing collars and are well-groomed. Capt. Kelly Walker of the Waynesboro Police Department said he was approached by two individuals with the strange tale, and said they were seeking permission to post fliers about the incidents. Walker said the cats were briefly taken from owners in the Tree Streets section of Waynesboro, the animals were returned with their genital areas shaved.
The half cat phenomena first made its appearance in the 1990s
“...an ordinary person going about their normal routine stumbles upon a half of a corpse of a cat left for them to find in an area that cannot be missed. The remains of the cat are always half of the cat cut straight across its mid-section dividing the cat in two parts. The top part of the cat including the head and two front paws is the most common half left in a staged manner to be purposely found. I have read reports of the bottom half of the cat left as well but most often it is the top portion of the cat.
There is no blood, no internal organs or mess to be found anywhere. The cat is left gutted, cleaned and looking very much like a cat hand puppet. The incision is clean and neat and without signs of any animal aggression towards the cat. I have been told the cats do look as if they tried to defend against the attack by signs of defensive actions but ultimately you find only a half cat that has been gutted, drained of blood, cleaned and left staged in a place where the cat will definitely be found.
Sometimes the cats belong to the people who find them. Other people have no idea who the cat belonged to but found it laid out across their walkway or patio neatly and obviously to be discovered by those living in the area it is being placed to be found”.
By 2014 cats began disappearing in clusters
By October 2014 the enormity of the problem was magnified by a location map put together by owners.
“It seems incredible that so many cats could simply disappear. They go out and don’t come back. If 108 cats have gone missing, where are the bodies? There are no traces, no sightings, nothing. They just vanished.”
"The Facebook group “Ipswich Missing Cats” last week, has already received 108 reports of disappearances – the majority of which happened in the past month. The mass disappearances coupled with cruel stories of torture have prompted pet owners to keep their cats on lockdown. The site has been inundated by stories of pets vanishing without a trace, others being found dead and buried, and evidence of torture among some of those returning. One pet owner said one of her cats had suffered a catalogue of cruel injuries after disappearing on Sunday evening. “When he came back he was limping, he was covered in faeces and he was absolutely terrified, his whiskers had been burned, there was a large chunk of fur that seemed to have been ripped out and when I took him to the vets they said it looked like he had been kicked around like a football. Other group members had been forced to put their cat down after returning with serious injuries. One owner lost all three of his pets in a single week."
The disappearances began at the beginning of the year but have markedly increased in recent months, the owners said. David Smith, the co-ordinator of Cats Protection’s Ipswich branch, said:
"We hear of cases of cats going missing or being mistreated from time to time but to hear of this number of cats going missing in such a short space of time is astonishing."
Ben Gummer, MP for Ipswich said he was “alarmed” at the scale of the problem. He said: “I am alarmed at the news that over one hundred cats have gone missing in my constituency in such a short space of time. There must be someone who knows what’s going on”. (http://metro.co.uk/2014/10/15/residents-are-on-the-hunt-for-serial-cat-killer-after-160-cats-go-missing-in-ipswich-4906946/)
Then the mutilated bodies started piling up
“People don’t want to believe it’s a human doing it. The suspect is like a ghost. We know he avoids CCTV”
“We are currently working alongside the police and the RSPCA to find the identity of the "M25 cat killer". We now have 31 cases confirmed by post mortem, with around 90 since Feb 2016 which bear the hallmarks of what is believed (through forensic evidence) to be the same killer.
Most of the attacks are occurring across a wide area in greater London, but we have also collected bodies from St Albans (confirmed by post mortem), Brackley in Northamptonshire (confirmed by post mortem)
Brighton, Maidstone, Manchester (confirmed by post mortem), Birmingham (confirmed by post mortem) and the Isle of Wight with identical wounds and are awaiting post mortem results to either rule these in or out.
If you live in Greater London you are currently living in a high risk area for these killings. However, we also now want to know about any cats, foxes or birds found with the following combination of injuries from Manchester down to the South Coast:
Decapitations/ removal of tail/ removal of paws/ any combination of these.
Please note that a high number of birds found decapitated are caused by predation injury, but we have one case of an owl who was decapitated in East London with a bladed instrument so we would rather know about them all.
If you see anyone behaving oddly around cats, foxes or birds in the area from Manchester down to the South Coast, please call this into police via 101 with a full description of the person and what they are doing, and quote Operation Takahe in the call. Where possible get vehicle registration details. Please then send us the police or CAD reference number.
If you see anyone catching a cat, kidnapping a cat or fox or bird, hurting, kicking, standing on or otherwise causing harm to a cat or fox or bird in the same geographical area, that same advice applies except that's a 999 call.
If you find a body which bear the injuries listed or body parts (heads, legs, paws or tails) above from Manchester down to the South Coast, please call us on 07961 030064 or 07957 830490 immediately. Please stay with the body/parts if you can and prevent any council or waste services from touching or removing it and anyone from photographing it. Our phones are by nature busy so if you can't get through on one number, try the other.
We advise that anyone living in the greater London area keep their cats indoors as much as they can and let them out only during the day when they can be supervised. Please keep your cats in at night. We appreciate this isn't easy, particularly as the weather gets warmer but you will cut the risk to your cat dramatically if you keep them indoors during the hours of darkness.
If you have any information about who might be committing these offences, please call the team running Operation Takahe on 0208 6490216. If you feel uneasy speaking to the police, you can contact us instead on the mobile numbers listed above. All calls will be treated in the strictest of confidence.”
Post mortem examinations by an RSPCA approved vet have indicated the likely cause of death is "blunt force trauma" - potentially consistent with being run over - with the head and tail being removed after death.
South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty SNARL (https://www.facebook.com/South-Norwood-Animal-Rescue-and-Liberty-SNARL-624100301029007/)
SOURCES
- https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2016/mar/01/cat-attacks-from-the-croydon-cat-killer-to-a-demon-barber-in-the-cotswolds
- http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/313002401.html
- http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/87904711/cat-owner-baffled-as-her-longhaired-tabby-comes-home-partially-shaved-twice
- http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/rash-of-shaved-cats-found-in-waynesboro/article_24ae6b20-7d5f-545a-aa74-9f446f9bd45e.html
- http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/croydon-cat-killer-cat-mutilations-accidental/story-28836871-detail/story.html#HhO524xdEQVPCooy.99
- http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/the-strange-story-of-the-stroud-shaver-pet-cats-targeted-in-bizarre-clipper-attacks-11364043599184
- (http://metro.co.uk/2014/10/15/residents-are-on-the-hunt-for-serial-cat-killer-after-160-cats-go-missing-in-ipswich-4906946/
- https://www.storydrome.com/single-post/2017/04/24/CSI-Croydon
- http://swollensky.blogspot.com /p/the-phenomena.html#.WGglLRt96Uk
- http://swollensky.blogspot.com /2016/10/ignorance-is-bliss.html#.WGgmeBt96Uk
- http://swollensky.blogspot.com /2016/09/it-comes-to-your-door.html#.WGgmUBt96Uk https://swollensky.blogspot.com /2019/10/the-urban-and-rural-mutilation-phenonema.html
Are these cats that are shaved aloud to return to increase the terror of what could have happened. Is what is ever doing this telling us it can do whatever it wants when it wants. It can decapitate it can cut into pieces it can gut and it can drain of blood or it can just shave and make you think your cat had a lucky escape. It seems to me this thing that is doing this wants you to know what this entity is, so it can further its unknown agenda. But we will never know what this entity is until we start to think out of the box. Once we realize this entity is not of this world we will be engulfed with fear and from that point the thing that is committing these mutilation will have achieved its goal.
ReplyDeleteAt this moment in time we are running ourselves ragged pointlessly chasing humans who we think are attacking our pets.