Cat snared in illegal trap for a week

The property owner, an elderly lady, heard the pitiful cries of pain coming from the bottom of her garden but was unable to find the source.

She immediately contacted the Galway Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GPCA), who dispatched two inspectors to the scene a fortnight ago.

There they uncovered the horrific site of a female cat, aged about two years old, whose leg above the paw had been fastened shut in the teeth of a steel trap. The device had crushed the bones to a pulp.

“It was awful, awful, awful,” exclaimed Margaret O’Sullivan of the GSPCA.

“That poor cat suffered some torture – she went through unbelievable pain and suffering.  As soon as she saw the inspector’s hand she made towards it. It was only when the rushes were moved away that they spotted the trap so it took another inspector going in from the other side to lift her out.”

The inspectors rushed her to the veterinary clinic in Barna where vet Leanne Evertson inspected the severely mangled leg. A decision was made immediately that the leg could not be saved.

The feline was so ill – suffering from a loss of blood coupled with starvation – that an operation was deemed out of the question. The vet estimated that the cat was in such an emaciated state that she must have been trapped for at least a week.

The staff spent the next few days building her up so that would be able to endure the stress of an amputation.

The cat, which the GSPCA christened Storm, managed to survive the operation and was this week welcomed into a foster home whose owner adopts pets with deformities.

The traps were routinely used across the countryside before being outlawed by the 1976 Wildlife Act.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.