Air gun pellet found in back of kitten’s neck
26/1/12- Bexhill kitten hit by an airgun pellet. Tao with owner Daniel Cole
PET owners in the Holliers Hill area of Bexhill have been warned by a neighbour that yobs with air-guns are taking pot-shots at domestic animals.
Clare Chambers, of Goodwood Close, off St John’s Road, was distraught to find that her black-and-white kitten, Tao, not yet a year-old, had been targeted.
She said: “Earlier this month Tao came in with an open wound to his ear. My partner and I did our best to clean it up and thought no more of it.
But when Tao subsequently injured a paw - and we don’t know quite how - we had to take him to the vet.
“During examination, the vet asked us if we realised that Tao had been shot, because there was an air gun pellet lodged in the back of his neck, and this appeared to tie in with the earlier injury to his ear. It could not be removed until he recovered sufficiently from his injured paw.”
Clare said her other pet cat, Patch, who’s four, had also come in about a month ago with an injury which she now fears could also have been inflicted by someone using an air weapon.
She said: “I’m horrified to think that anyone could be so mindless and cruel to shoot at a defenceless animal, not knowing or caring that it might be injured, blinded or even die as a result of their foolishness.”
Clare’s partner Daniel Cole, has reported her concerns to local police and officers are investigating her complaint. The pellet was removed from Tao’s neck last week.
• In October 2007, new laws governing the sale and use of air weapons and imitation firearms were introduced, making it an offence for anyone under 18 to possess, buy, sell or receive an air weapon as a gift.
They can only be used legally by youngsters as a member of a shooting club, in a shooting gallery where weapons not exceeding .23 calibre are being used or on private property with the owner’s permission.
If shooting on private land, such as a back garden, no pellet should leave the boundary of the property. And in England and Wales it is an offence to fire an air rifle within 50 feet of the centre of a highway if this results in someone being “injured, interrupted or endangered”.
Anyone under 18 caught with an air weapon in public could face a £1,000 fine. It’s also illegal for a person under the age of 18 to buy an imitation firearm, including ball-bearing guns, or to sell such an item to a person under the age of 18.
Further advice is available from the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) - website www.basc.org.uk - or Sussex Police, telephone 101.
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Weather for Bexhill-on-Sea
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South west
