RSPCA animal cruelty stats reveal Far North’s worst offending suburb
An animal welfare worker has recalled the cruelty rescue that stands out in her mind as the RSPCA released its animal cruelty stats for 2020, highlighting which suburbs of Cairns were the worst.
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EDMONTON topped the list for the most Far Northern animal cruelty complaints for 2020, in what has been described as a “full throttle” year.
RSPCA Queensland inspectors investigated 17,146 complaints about animal cruelty in 2020, compared with 18,681 in 2019, and neglect and ambulance officers attended 29,072 rescues, down from 29,865 the previous year.
“It’s still been incredibly busy but the number of jobs has decreased slightly from last year, which I guess is a glimmer of hope,” said RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty.
The Inspectorate Task force, which consists of two inspectors and a digital intelligence officer, investigated 26 jobs in relation to prohibited events, including dog fighting and cock fighting, 58 jobs involving commercial breeders and seven involving rescue groups.
There are four current prosecutions relating to the prohibited events and two each in relation to breeders and rescue groups.
RSPCA Cairns animal care manager Natalie Anger said it had been a weird year for the local welfare group, with national and global events taking their toll on the city’s branch.
“We had the bushfires at the end of 2019 and early 2020, so a lot of our resources were sent down south to assist animals there,” she said.
“And then COVID kicked in and we had to reduce our staff and a lot of our volunteers are in that vulnerable category.”
She said although overall complaint numbers were down, any number would always be too many.
“We saw a bit of a reprieve during the lockdown and lot of people were wanting to foster animals,” Ms Anger said.
“But in the second half of the year, there were a lot more surrenders. A lot of them due to financial reasons; we even had people come in and ask for food donations for their pets.”
She said of the many significant rescues inspectors carried out, one that stood out was that of american staffordshire bull terrier, Missy, who was retrieved from Innisfail.
“In December 2019, an inspector found her on a chain in the sun, with no food or water and she had puppies just running around. The inspector also found a deceased puppy,” Ms Anger said.
“The next day she’d fallen down a ditch and chain was strangling her, so the inspector seized her. We took her in, she gave birth to another litter and they’ve all been adopted.”
ANIMAL CRUELTY HOT SPOTS IN FNQ
FNQ’s top 10 most reported suburbs:
Edmonton 57
Mareeba 51
White Rock 30
Bentley Park 29
Manoora 29
Manunda 28
Earlville 25
Gordonvale 24
Mount Sheridan 22
Redlynch 19
Originally published as RSPCA animal cruelty stats reveal Far North’s worst offending suburb
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