Animal cruelty cases drop slightly but Logan’s firecracker kitten ranked as one of worst

A kitten that had fire crackers taped to its body was among the worst animal cruelty cases reported in Queensland last year but, sadly, there were a lot more where that came from.

A Park Ridge kitten had a firecracker taped to it; a dog had to get its leg amputated after it was shot; and a wallaby was rescued from a mine shaft in 2020.

A kitten with fire crackers taped to its body rescued from a Park Ridge address in Logan was one of the worst animal cruelty cases reported in Queensland last year.

A dog, which had to have a leg amputated after it was shot, was another case RSPCA officers ranked as highly distressing.

Other cases included an abandoned cat having her kittens in the roof of a Mt Ommaney house, where RSPCA rescue officers tried unsuccessfully for two hours to retrieve them but ended up calling in the Mt Ommaney Fire Fighters, who were able to make a hole in the wall.

The kittens in the ceiling.

Rescued... the kittens are taken from the ceiling.

Ambulance rescues also included a wallaby down a mineshaft, ducklings hatched in a homeowner’s chimney, a coughing kangaroo treated with antibiotics and a possum stuck in a pipe filled with excrement.

Despite more pet owners working from home last year, animal cruelty across the state did not abate with the RSPCA Queensland’s Inspectorate and Rescue services investigating 17,146 complaints and the service’s ambulance officers attended 29,072 rescues.

But RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty said there had been a slight drop in the number of incidents, despite it still being “an incredibly busy year” for the service.

The Park Ridge kitten was saved by the RSPCA.

“The number of jobs has decreased slightly from 2019, which I guess is a glimmer of hope,” he said.

In 2019, Inspectors investigated 18,681 complaints and ambulance officers received 29,865 call-outs.

Caboolture pet owners were at the top of the 2020 offending list, with 178 cases down from 221 cases in 2019.

Morayfield came in second with 143 cases, down from 121 the year before.

Pet owners in Redland Bank Plains recorded 141 cases the same in 2019.

RSPCA inspectors went into a mine shaft to rescue a wallaby.

Kallangar came in fourth on the list with 139 cases, followed closely by Southport with 125 and Deception Bay with 122, slightly down from 124 in 2019.

Woodridge, Beenleigh, Slacks Creek and Eagleby were just outside the top 10 in 2020 with all recording more than 90 cases of cruelty over the year.

This dog had its leg amputated after it was shot in one of the acts of animal cruelty in 2020.

The Logan suburb of Kingston, which clocked in at No 9 with 111 cases in 2019, improved and recorded 64 cases in 2020.

The Inspectorate Taskforce, which consists of two Inspectors and a digital intelligence officer, investigated 26 jobs in relation to 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.