Small rural town, don't even have a red light...
Here is an e-mail received from the city today.

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Over the course of the last two weeks, there has been 22 cats reported missing in Bell Buckle. We do not know if this is the result of a person(s) or an animal. We would like everyone to be attentive to this situation and please let Chief Tommy Wiley or Mayor Ronnie Lokey know should you see anything that relates to this situation. We all love our pets and want to protect them the best we can. Best to all work together to hopefully end this sad two week trend.
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As someone with a rescue cat that spends roughly 50% of its time outside I am concerned!

More than one reported missing per day... and probably more that have not been reported. We virtually never see a stray dog or cat.


What you thunk... Man or beast most likely responsible.

Chinese restaurant?

Hoping it's a 4 legged animal and not a 2 legged one.

Coyotes, wild dogs is a possibility in your area.

If it's a 2 legged one, there's a lot more problems than killin cats.

If he was a little closer I might have thought SR borrowed them to fix his squirrels problem...


No Chinese restaurants within 10 miles.


We do have some distant coyotes you can sometimes hear but they don't seem to come into town.

“We do have some distant coyotes you can sometimes hear but they don't seem to come into town”

If you can hear them, they are coming into town....and that’s where your cats are going.

It could be a lover of song birds ....

Poison.

We had several feral cats living in the fields behind our house before the winter of 2017-18. Coyotes drove our dog crazy, she was behind a tall chain link fence but we still did not let her out when they started yipping or when she heard something in the night.

They moved on a few month later and must have taken the cats along with them one way or the other.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
Poison.

I'd guess this.

My cats don't leave my house unless I'm carrying them, or they are leashed.

We have lots of song birds in our community, and never see cats roaming. We do, however, hear coyotes at night. Hmmmm....

.....chupakabra???

Birds of prey will make quick work of a cat if it's outside

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:
.....chupakabra???

If nobody is hearing shots randomly here and there, my guess is coyotes. They are smart efficient cat hunters (along with everything else they can tackle. Once they figure out there is an easy to find and catch food source, they will quickly exploit it.

Were they allowed to roam free? If so how can they be protected “the best they can”. When you let your pet roam off your property it’s pretty hard to protect them.

As far as hearing shots I have a .22 cal pellet rifle that makes very little noise that is quite accurate at 50 yards so even if shots aren’t heard two legged predator can’t be ruled out.

Are there coyotes around? We had one sometimes 2 coyotes around for almost two years one time in my neighborhood. A lot of cats disappeared around that time. I worked 2nd and 3rd shift at that time and personally saw a coyote with a cat in its mouth two different times, coming home in the dark. Cats are no match for a coyote in the night. It did not stop till people started keeping their cats inside at night time. Coyotes are some of the best hunters out there... especially at night.

Wouldn't poison would leave dead bodies and kill indiscriminately? If the critters are vanishing w/out a trace I'd say yotes got em.

quote:

Originally posted by doublesharp:
Wouldn't poison would leave dead bodies and kill indiscriminately? If the critters are vanishing w/out a trace I'd say yotes got em.

Agreed.

Yotes would be my guess. My dogs go crazy sometimes at night and we kill them whenever we spot them.

They are stealthy bastards but we knocked em down a few notches the past year and most of them have moved along.

quote:

Over the course of the last two weeks, there has been 22 cats reported missing in Bell Buckle. We do not know if this is the result of a person(s) or an animal. We would like everyone to be attentive to this situation and please let Chief Tommy Wiley or Mayor Ronnie Lokey know should you see anything that relates to this situation. We all love our pets and want to protect them the best we can. Best to all work together to hopefully end this sad two week trend.

Any new menu items at the Cafe?

In all seriousness that’s strange. I’m thinking coyote as well

Think I might come up to the cafe this weekend. It’s one of my favorite places.

The Coyotes we hear sound a mile or more away, could be them I guess but why now? 22 in two weeks and none before in 4 years?

We have Fox right behind our house and a big Owl that comes around sometimes around dusk.

I found a dead fox in the back yard about a month ago, it looked very poorly, malnourished, with a rough dull coat... but no cat carcass have been found.

Our cat uses the litter box 100% but I hate not letting her out every day she loves it so much. She's a good hunter herself and is spayed and up on shots. She brings in birds, mice, lizards, snakes and even a mole but rarely wanders off the place. After me fighting and loosing the fight with moles for 3 years one year with her and now we have none.