It’s a tiring and often thankless effort for a local group working to help cats and kittens left behind or have grown up feral. The Lowcountry Trap Neuter Release (TNR) Network spends countless volunteer hours and their own money to keep the feline population in check in a compassionate manner.
The group will spend hours humanely trapping cats. When caught, they are fixed and released back to the community where they roamed. They go to various areas three or four nights a week where the cat population is increasing. Sometimes, there are close to 100 wandering in the fields and woods, usually near some type of human habitat.
The group pops in and out of such sites, trapping as many as possible and moving on to the next.
However, on the afternoon of Oct. 6, good intentions were met with heartbreak at a site around 910 Drop Off Drive in the Summerville area of Berkeley County. The area, adjacent to some townhomes and a storage business, was recently sold and is set to be developed. It was there where volunteers discovered what would later become a potential crime scene.
“One of the caretakers went to the colony and saw six dead cats and contacted us, and then, by the time we all got there, we counted 12 cats and three opossums that were dead,” said Lindsey Chaussard, president of the Lowcountry TNR Network.
Pictures show opened cans of tuna with portions of the minced fish meat still inside near a few of the dead animals — that same day, deputies from the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office were called to investigate.
“They treated it like a crime scene,” Chaussard said. “They swept the scene, took pictures for evidence and looked for fingerprints on the cans. And then we all, the 15 of us, walked the entire property.”
Chaussard said law enforcement is taking the incident seriously. Another group wanting answers after hearing about the incident is Pet Helpers of the Lowcountry in Johns Island. Founder Carol Linville has been working to save animals for decades.
“There is no question it was an intentional act to kill as many that would come to these large cans of tuna,” Linville said. “It’s egregious and cruel.”
Linville adds that a lot of time and money is spent on programs like TNR so animals don’t have to be put down in a shelter. The task is endless — cats are prolific.
“It only takes one to create five or six, and they go into heat three times a year,” Linville said. “Females can go into heat at 5 months of age. They are working diligently everywhere.”
Pet Helpers has announced a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the deaths.
In the meantime, Chaussard said the sheriff’s is still investigating, and the deceased cats have been taken to Charleston for necropsies to determine the cause of death.