Pet cat suffers appalling injuries in fox snare

Owner hits out after pet gets caught in cruel trap

AN animal lover has hit out at landowners who set snares after her cat came home almost ‘rotting to death’ after being trapped in the cruel device.

Yazmin Jones, of Newtown, Potton, was horrified when her cat Rio came back after being missing for two weeks, with a wire snare around his neck, maggots crawling out of him, and his face swollen to more than double its size.

The 29-year-old said: “It was unbelievable. He had been missing since fireworks night and about two weeks later I just heard this meowing.

“So I looked outside and saw him. I just could not believe it. He was practically rotting to death, there were just hundreds of maggots coming out of his neck.

“It was absolutely heartbreaking. I took him straight to the vet and she told me she had never seen anything like it before and just kept saying how horrifying it was over and over again.”

Mrs Jones believes that Rio was probably hanging from the snare for up to a week before somebody cut him free.

And she has now blasted landowners who use the snares to catch rabbits and foxes.

She added: “When I first saw what happened to him I thought somebody must have done this to him, but then I found the metal snare round his neck.

“I am just really really angry now. I know they want to catch the rabbits but what has happened to Rio is just awful, it’s not fair innocent animals are getting hurt.”

Mrs Jones was told by the vet to put Rio down but she wanted to give him a chance at survival. It is now expected to take around nine months for the three-year-old cat to recover from his injuries, but he is slowly making progress.

The National Anti-Snaring Campaign, which has been fighting for snares to be made illegal since 1995, has now warned pet owners to look hard for their missing animals as they could be stuck in these deadly snares.

A spokesman for the campaign said: “It’s quite strange for snares to be out in rural areas at this time of year because they are usually out around July time.

“So I suspect it was either a fox snare or it was put up by gamekeepers. But this just goes to show exactly why we have been campaigning for the last 13 years.

“I would really warn people to look hard for their pets because they can go off quite a distance from their homes and get stuck in a snare.”