Shot dead by thugs, the cat that was 118
ONE of the world’s oldest cats has been shot by a thug with an air rifle, leaving her elderly owner devastated.
Mummy Cat was 25 – or 118 in cat years – when she was shot in the abdomen and the face, causing her to lose an eye.
Granddad Brian Parker, 67, said one of the pellets was so close to her brain that vets were forced to put her down.
Mr Parker, a father of four from Hindlip, Worcestershire, said: ‘It’s disgusting. The worst thing is you can’t do anything about it.
‘If you got hold of the thugs who did it and gave them a good hiding you would get arrested.’
His daughter, Laura Webb, 30, said someone with a rifle was ‘stalking in front of the house’, adding: ‘My brother confronted him and told him he could not have an air rifle in public.
‘The teen said he was just shooting rabbits and ran off to his friends. Minutes later our cat ran into the house bleeding. She was so friendly. She probably went to greet her attacker.’
Mr Parker, who is a lock-keeper for the Canal and River Trust, said: ‘Mummy Cat was on course to be the oldest cat in the world and it is sad that her life was ended in that barbaric way.’ The world’s oldest living cat is Corduroy, from Sisters in the US state of Oregon, who is 26 years and 317 days old.
The oldest cat ever was Creme Puff, who died in Austin, Texas, in 2005 aged 38.
The shooting comes days after research by the charity Cats Protection found that 44 per cent of vets have treated cats for wounds inflicted by air rifles and air pistols in the past year.