Police investigate after finding drowned stray cat in a trap dumped in Burton pond
Someone threw a cat trap containing a stray cat into a pond in Burton last week, killing the cat, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office reported. The Hilton Head Humane Association, seeking information that will help identify and prosecute that person, has offered a reward.
The reward started at $1,000 but was increased to $1,500 Thursday morning, said the association’s executive director, Franny Gerthoffer.
“It’s not something that’s going to go away until they find out who did it,” Gerthoffer said.
On Nov. 23, Beaufort County Animal Control Services officers set traps at the Magnolia Park Apartment complex in Burton in northern Beaufort County, according to an alert from the sheriff’s office. Animal Control officers discovered the trap missing when they returned the next day.
Deputies responded to the complex after 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 24, Maj. Bob Bromage from the Sheriff’s Office said. While there, they found the trap in the pond with the dead cat inside, the alert said. A necropsy done on the animal concluded that it had drowned, Bromage said.
The person responsible will be charged with felony cruelty to animals, Bromage said.
The traps are a part of a Hilton Head Humane Association and Animal Control trap-and-release program which focuses on population control, according to Gerthoffer and Animal Control’s front office manager Ray Turner.
“We’re typically making sure they don’t have feline immunodeficiency virus ... so they don’t spread it to the rest of the ferals,” Turner said. “And basically spaying or neutering them to control the population a little bit.”
The cats that are trapped, Gerthoffer said, are taken to the association’s clinic for service and then returned. She was angry when she first heard the news, and that feeling hasn’t gone away.
“Somebody just deliberately made it their business to be a coward,” Gerthoffer said.
Anyone who has information may call Sgt. Dario Sosa with the sheriff’s office at (843) 255-3435 or Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry at (843) 554-1111.
