Shelter still blames them for cat deaths
`Persistent' chatter casts doubt on official explanation
Despite theories to the contrary, a coyote was likely responsible for the recent cat deaths in Ottawa that alarmed the community, the president and CEO of the Ottawa Humane Society asserted on Thursday.
The spate of feline deaths, which at first were suspected of being caused by a human, disturbed pet owners and non-owners alike and prompted city police set up a tip line.
But after a veterinary pathologist concluded that the animals were likely killed by a coyote, the police ended their investigation. That hasn't stopped some social media sleuths from continuing to believe that a cat killer is on the loose in Ottawa or that the police are involved in a cover-up.
“There are persistent theories that the (cat) killer is human,” Bruce Roney, president and CEO of the humane society, wrote in a blog post on Thursday, “but the OHS has come to believe that the evidence points to the perpetrator as a coyote or coyotes.”
In the post, Roney outlines his perspective of the case. Cats have been found killed in similar circumstances in Alberta, he argued, citing a study published in the Journal of Veterinary Pathology.
That study, which looked at 53 cat carcasses found in Edmonton and St. Albert, found that a majority
of them could be directly linked to coyote predation, and a number of others were scavenged by coyotes after their death.
“In no case was there any clear evidence of non-accidental injury by humans,” the authors of the study wrote.
“Thus, we conclude that coyote predation and scavenging were responsible for most, if not all, of the cases of dismembered cat remains discovered.”
Furthermore, cat deaths are surprisingly common in Ottawa, Roney added. The Ottawa Valley Lost Pet Network has had 690 reports of cats found dead since January 2019, and 92 bodies have been brought to the OHS during the same period.
“Between the two,” Roney wrote, “that's almost one every day, and that surely doesn't represent all the cats killed in the region.”
Coyotes are also surprisingly common, he added.
“Coyotes are frequently found in urban settings,” he wrote. “I have seen several myself here in Hunt
Club, and staff frequently report sightings. There have also been coyote attacks on humans in Riverside South.”
Roney also weighed in on the findings of a note near the corpse of one cat. The note, a photo of which was posted on Facebook earlier this month, makes references to a popular internet urban legend and would seem to suggest that someone was intentionally killing the animals, but Roney didn't buy the connection.
“I think it likely that someone is having a sick laugh at our expense and horror,” he wrote. “Remember, no notes were found until the story had been well-covered in the media.”
Ultimately, he concluded, that leaves the bulk of the evidence pointing towards a coyote attack.
“At the end of the day, the cats perished nonetheless. It is deeply disturbing as they clearly suffered horrendous deaths,” he wrote.
“The solution is the same in any case: cats should be kept safely indoors.”