The pet-snatcher of Wickham Road
BC spotted this sign pinned to a tree towards the north end of Wickham Road. Is this a real problem in the area? Does Cruella De Vil stalk Brockley? Wickham Rd residents, your views please ...
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77 comments:
I do know that some years back - perhaps 10 or so, loads of cats particularly were going missing. Possibly, simply because of the numbers involved, it was speculated (I think no more than that) that they were being taken deliberately.
I'd wondered about this before - there always seems to be a surprisingly high number of missing posters around the area, from Brockley all the way down to Catford. Most of them seem to be 'status dogs' which can obviously be sold in pubs for quite a bit of cash.
This has urban myth all over it. Deep fried cat anyone?
Catman has been pretty quiet lately...
Is deep fried cat a dog-whistle?
Most cats seem to go missing in spring, when the foxes are cubbing.
This has Goldsmiths contemporary art project written all over it.
BTW, saw that Goldsmiths doc. It was (unintentionally) hilarious.
It didn't paint contemporary art or the college very nicely at all. It's a shame...because I know it's a well-run, well-respected college.
weird pet posters seem to be the thing at the
moment http://twitpic.com/1iuhj2
yes, the goldsmiths thing was amusing. I suppose they have to pick the more ecentric ones for the documentry.
I guess thats the result of cats vanalising the neighbours garden.
I don't condone catnapping (if that indeed is the case) but nevertheless I personally won't miss them in my garden.
I get really worried about reading this, I also thought that there has been far too many missing cat posters in our area.
One of my cats went missing last year actually - was gone for 1 week. I put up posters but to no avail then fortunately a dog walker saw my poster, and a different poster saying 'cat found' and in conjunction with Erin in the Broca Food Market I was reunited to my beloved pet.
So althrough frightening to read this, there is certainly a community around here, people are helpful. Well, at least in West Brockley and thankfully thats where I live.
@Danja - what happens if you deep-fry a dog whistle?
It's a frytening thought.
Clearly BC needs to ask all the election candidates what they're going to do to stop pet-napping. Anyone wanna guess the answers?
Tories: longer prison sentences for pet-napping; Labour: tax credits for rehabilitated pet-nappers; Lib Dems: The system is at fault for failing to adequately represent people's pet ownership choices; Green: Put a mini-wind turbine on every pet, making them carbon-neutral as well as more easy to find. BNP: Those damn foreign breeds, coming over here and usurping our good old British bulldogs.
As [b]Brockley and district hunt[/b] suggested, I've seen more foxes on Wickham Road recently than I've seen cat burglars....
Slow news day on BC? bullock must be fuming that his brockley launch has been overshadowed by alledged cat theft.
If true - this isn't funny.
Catnapping and dognapping are surely very different skills. Dogs of high status breeds, I can see being worth stealing, but they usually come with the owner at the other end a lead, and a gnashy bit at the dog end.
Catnapping, why bother, you can get them for free at the Celia Hammond Animal Trust on Lewisham Way, coincidentally, at the North end of Wickham Rd...
A CATastrophe?
I can't imagine anyone who makes a sign saying "U R" is in full posession of the facts. Probably over analysing 2 cats being run over within the space of a year or something similarly non-conclusive.
Green: Put a mini-wind turbine on every pet, making them carbon-neutral as well as more easy to find
Good idea Kate, at 3 for 2 you could buy loads of hamsters and attach a mini generator to their respective exercise wheels to supplement the power to your home. In order to encourage them to exercise you could collect the stray cats and keep them in the same room as the hamsters. The hamsters of course will be in special EU certified cages (made in China) so cannot be harmed by the ever watchful cats.
The fact there seems to be a rush to sell the hamsters makes me wonder if a petshop owner somewhere in the borough made a gender error with the parents and the whole explosion of rodents was a bit of a surprise.
Deep-fried cat most certainly is a dog whistle, if you'll pardon the pun!
Someone who compares it to child-snatching has lost their sense of perspective too. Sounds like rubbish to me, the area's overrun with cats.
Wow, you go off and do some work for a while and a whole thread erupts about stolen pets. I must admit, my 1st thought was that this was a student "art" project or something...
Over run? Is there an accetable feline density factor and are we in breach? We need to know NOW.
Socialist Workers Party: Pet ownership is inter species exploitation. Bite your 'owners' and piss in their slippers.
I know someone who was an eye-witness to theft of a cat (not a pedigree). It's an owner's worst fear - they could be used for experiments or as bait for fighting dogs. It's no laughing matter and, unfortunately, not an urban myth.
The foxes are highly unlikely to be responsible. They may go for kittens (which shouldn't be out anyway) but a grown cat wouldn't have any problem defending itself. Cats and foxes generally ignore each other.
And to the person who mentioned Celia Hammond's - they vet every new owner thoroughly, so that's not an option for a ready supply of cats!
Vixens will defend their cubs with some vehemence, just ask any terrier man. Tibbles will poke into dark corners confident in the belief that she's the supreme suburban raptor....
Kate! hilarious!
It's not foxes - a neighbours small black cat saw off a large dog fox from our garden this morning.
Cats tend to wander and 'find' new owners.
I also wonder when the Chinese takeways serve Fried Cat racism is going to stop too?
A dog fox, of whatever size will avoid confrontation, a vixen with cubs is a different proposition entirely, I can assure you.
Unfortunately, this issue wasn't raised at the hustings last night at St Peter's. Considering the parochiality of the Mayor's question session this would have fit right in...
How parochial was the discussion? What did they cover?
So labs buy stolen cats? Really? Cats go missing, are runover etc. Get over it.
The idea that there are cat traders out there is just TOO laughable.
@Kung Fu Hustle - no one said anything about chinese restuarants did they?
I've got some manx going cheap
I was taking the piss out of the urban myth that takeaways serve cat. Given the price of cheap wholesale chicken, catching an angry cat would not be a great bussiness plan
That'd be stir-fried cat. Deep-fried cat is a much more multicultural thing.
CAThartic !
Actually, just to draw a line underneath the chinese racism the chinese authorities have actually recently outlawed the consumption of Cat meat in China.
It surprised me hear that considering some areas are pretty poverty stricken!
Yeah, thanks for drawing that line.
It's not funny to pet owners!
even less funny for the cat. Except cats have no sense of humour, you should have seen what mine used to do when I did the old 'starting up the vacume cleaner' joke.
Has anyone seen my Elephant? (Indian, not African) went missing last week off Breakspears Road.
This is the second one gone in a month... there must be a problem in the area.
He's probably in a council meeting room somewhere, not being discussed
The last time I remember having this discussion was around the same time the snake escaped in Crofton Park. Has anyone checked on it recently?
Even suppose fox's were attacking cats, which I doubt is true, wouldnt this help bring back some 'balance of nature' to the grdens. Lets hear it for the songbirds, or better still, lets just hear the songbirds!!!
Mark you, foxes also eat the song-birds. Once working at a proof reading job in the wee small hours - 4am in the summer so the garden was light - looked out and saw a blackbird on the lawn (ah, lovely...). Next time I looked up it was still there, but being eaten by a fox.
Still, I expect cats are a greater threat to birds than foxes, urban cat populations are incredibly dense these days, there are 4 cats just between our place and our neighbours! I think fewer people have dogs these days because they are more reliant on someone being around so cat populations have boomed and consequently small mammal and bird populations have dropped. Shame some of these dozy mogs can't do something about the grey squirrels everywhere....
Oh not the squirrels! Whats wrong with the ikkle squiggels?
All cat's should be made to wear bell's (hav'nt seen it on any manifesto)
They're flocking over, like eastern Europeans and politicians after a floating vote
It's true what they say about squirrels. Rats in pretty costumes. They eat all the bloody food I put out for the birds. Need to knock up some kind of electric fence thing to stop them...
Dont even go there biggot. Have you seen the behaviour of the parakeets in Greenwich park and now our own dear Hilly Fields!!!
@Headhunter: Dont be too hasty. They may yet be a vluable protein source in the lean times ahead; More so even than community orchards and the like.
Do any local butchers sell grey squirrel? I would quite like to try it.
Just like chicken apparently.
I'd definitely slap one on the barbie if I could catch it. Very environmentally friendly food - locally produced, organic, free range and abundant. I may try setting up traps in the garden. You'd probably need 3 or 4 to get enough meat for a casserole, they're probably pretty bony.
Yes DB, I remember you filling me in on your grey squirrel/police history.
Agree cats are worse than foxes and really bad news for the bird population. Unfortunately the local poll on the hilltoppers site here is about equally divided pro and anti birds.
Squirrel I have eaten - gamier than chicken. If you fancy a try (and a good day out in Kent)go on one of these courses Bushcraft Magazine. Highly recommended for learning and teaching your children where food comes from. My townie teenage daughter who started off from the position of someone who goes "yukk" at the watery pink stains under supermarket meat ended the day plucking and drawing a pigeon and fascinated by the play of muscle and wing.
Yes, but I am on the straight and narrow now and squirrels are my friends…..
Theres a good recipe for our grey guests in The Guardian's Food and Drink May 11th 2008. How do you put links on here?
I remeber watching a woman chase a large goana out of her straw hut with a broom in Thailand. That's what you call a garden pest.
Thanks for the link Tamsin, even if the poll makes for a bit of disheartining reading. I've seen a kestrel or merlin in H.F., never a sparrowhawk. When I said cats should be fitted with bells I had in mind the type made in a foundry. Get over to the Hillyfielders site everyone. The cat lobby is trying to abolish the blackbird...democratically.
@ Monkeyboy Bed and breakfasting years ago in a croft in Skye (when it was still a "proper" island) - wonderful breakfast but the delivery punctuated by a cry from the kitchen "Get that sheep out of here!" They had a large and very solid pet lamb which hadn't realised that it had grown well beyond the cute stage - but totally won you over with its friendliness.
@ Anon Links: (cribbing my notes)
type in [then say "here" or "BBC site" or however you want it described in blue]<[slash]a>
See if that works without actually trying to provide a link...
No it didn't
The first bit is:
the opening "<"
then "a"
then a space
then "href="
then the website details - cut and pasted is convenient - within double quotation marks
then ">"and describe it - comes out in blue
then "<" and a slash and "a" and ">"
PPS and the url has to include the "http://" malarky or it won't work.
HH, I too struggle with the curse of squirrels eating all my bird food (and excavating in my garden, come to that) - I am sorely tempted to get one of these for the amusement value if nothing else!
http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/shop/product.html?product_id=551&-session=shopper:519FDB6E0a79e25C6BlnFF1D394E
The birds keep eating my squirrel food - wanna trade?
squirrel recipe<-a>
Ahem..... Its in the Guardian....
The flipper feeder sounds and absolute hoot. Alas my husband quite likes squirrels and I don't anyway want to encourage birds because of the neighbours cats (and that fox).
Do get one, though, and post a video on U-tube for us all to enjoy.
I've been thinking about getting one of those feeders with the big cages round them but there are clips on Youtube showing young squirrels squeezing into those! I put Castrol engine grease all over the pole of the feeder so that they slip off or get grease all over their paws and fur and that certainly puts them off a bit but it doesn't completely solve the problem, I can sometimes see paw prints and bits of fur stuck to the engine grease.
Might try one of those spinnning feeders
I considered buying one of those gadgets too but thought £120 was a bit much. Also, I had just bought a 'squirrel proof' feeder made of thick mesh which the buggers promptly chewed through anyway. I also tried putting chilli powder in the feed as a deterrent but that didn’t seem to work either.
Touch wood though, I think the cold winter has killed a lot of them off because I haven't seen one so far this year.
That's because they are all in my garden living it up!
I ended up getting a feeder that sticks to suction cups to a window, so the squirrels don't have a chance. Works a treat and you see the birds up close.
I think it's clear that this election, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis of generations, is not really engaging us as it should.
I actually quiet like squirrels, now pigeons on the other hand....
Pigeons are fine, but if I could get my hands on a magpie, why I'd.......I think what all this interest shows is the need for a dedicated fur and feather thread.
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