Noiraude, a small cat, was shot near her home and died as a result of her injuries.
Hit by a bullet in a town near Rennes, Noiraude was found very weakened by her family. After losing a lot of blood, the cat succumbed to her injuries at the veterinary clinic where she had been immediately taken. One Voice took action on her behalf, but unfortunately our complaint was dismissed.
When she was discovered lying in her basket outside her home on Saturday March 9, Noiraude was in agony, blood pouring from her left ear and her legs too weak to support her body. Where had she been hit by the bullet that had caused the bleeding? For the cat to have managed to drag herself back to her family after being shot like that, the accident, if it was one, couldn’t have happened too far away… Her people quickly took her to a vet. With a shattered eardrum, a lost eye, a damaged vertebra and the bullet still lodged in her neck with multiple splinters in her skull, Noiraude was very anemic at the time she was taken into care, due to the hemorrhaging. Every effort was made to save her. Despite emergency treatment, she did not survive.
A life prey to hunters…
Below the garden where the cat had taken refuge, very close to the houses, coypus are being stalked by hunters. Like foxes, martens and rooks, coypus are on the sinister list of “species likely to cause damage” (ESOD), and can be killed by guns and traps almost all year round.
For those who put them to death, Noiraude is just another collateral victim, like Mani, whose paw was caught in a snare, or Snooky, who had his middle and ring fingers amputated because of a leg-hold trap.
… and straying
Years before this ultimate violence, the little cat had been confronted with the scourge of straying. Born without a home, vulnerable to disease, bad weather and the cruelty of certain humans, she had finally been lucky enough to be taken in by a loving family, along with her mother. Thousands of felines can’t say the same and die every year in the streets, forgotten by all, when they’re not slaughtered at the pound.
Noiraude should have died of old age, in peace and love, at home, long after an eighth birthday she won’t be able to celebrate. The bullets that keep whistling through our countryside have robbed her of this right. On her behalf, we filed a complaint alongside her family. A few weeks later, the case was finally dismissed. As is all too often the case, the unidentified perpetrator remains unpunished.
For all stray cats, sign our petitions to demand a national emergency plan and an end to euthanasia in pounds.