Have A Heart, More Than A Thousand Cats In South Korea Have Died From Poisoning In The Last 13 Years

Cat illustration. (Unsplash / Emre)

JAKARTA - South Korean police are investigating the deaths of more than a thousand stray cats, mostly due to rat poison in the Sintanjin area, Daejeon. Some residents in the neighborhood suspect that someone has deliberately killed the cat there since 2008.

According to a KBS report on Monday, the cats had been poisoned with pieces of chicken that were left over as bait. A cat was found dead in a residential area just steps from a pile of rubbish, where two pieces of chicken were coated in blue powder (poison).

The police brought the tainted carcass and meat to the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency for analysis. The results showed that all of them contained signs of rodenticides.

"One of the residents said a stray cat he used to care for died suddenly. For several days, he said he could not eat because of grief," the report said as reported by Koreatimes, Tuesday 4 May.

Cat illustration. (Wikimedia Commons / Jennifer Barnard)

A local activist group for stray cats in Daejeon, South Korea has been searching for and collecting the poisonous meat. Despite their efforts, two cats were found dead in April and three in the previous month. Pieces of powder blue chicken were found near all the dead cats.

One group member said they find more than 30 pieces of poisoned meat every day and have seen more than 1,000 cats die over the past 13 years in the area.

Police said they were studying footage from security cameras installed around the area. They also said they were looking for people who bought rodenticide about a month ago from a local drugstore.

A petition calling on the authorities to find and convict the cat killer on the Cheong Wa Dae website has garnered more than 43,000 signatures.

"I want to ask the police, the procuratorate, the city office and the district office. Do you think this persistent cat killing is not serious?" asked the applicant.

"Would you like to live near someone who keeps spreading poisonous chickens around in your neighborhood?" stated another petitioner.