- The Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals says it continued to see an increase last year in
the number of animals found abused and living in appalling conditions.
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- Convictions for cruelty rose by 17.5%,
a figure the animal welfare organisation calls "alarming".
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- It says the people who committed some
of the worst crimes could not be traced, because the animals had not been
fitted with microchips.
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- The RSPCA's Tony Crittenden said: "Such
unsolved cases clearly show the need for animals to be microchipped, so
that pets are permanently linked to their owners.
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- "That way, unscrupulous owners who
commit such cruel and barbaric acts of violence could be traced and brought
to justice."
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- Injured tail
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- Cases dealt with by the RSPCA included
a three-foot iguana found abandoned in a field of sheep in Somerset.
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- The end of the reptile's tail was missing,
and she had abscesses on her tail, head and chest.
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- The iguana, a native of South America,
was nursed back to health at an RSPCA centre.
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- Another case, this time in Sussex, involved
a farm where an RSPCA inspector found 50 dead sheep, along with too diseased
to survive.
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- The farmer, who was involved in a wedding
celebration when the inspector called, told the court he had been unwell
and caring for his elderly mother.
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- He was fined, but not banned from keeping
animals.
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- In the Leicestershire town of Loughborough
the body of a Rottweiler cross-breed was found hanging from a bridge in
September last year.
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- The body was too decomposed to allow
vets to establish the exact cause of death.
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- An RSPCA inspector called it "the
worst case of animal cruelty" he had seen during nine years at Loughborough.
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- The RSPCA singles out several other cases:
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- * a cat that was scalded and had ribs
and a leg fractured * three greyhound puppies which were left to starve
and which survived by eating their dead siblings * a dog thrown from a
car
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- Cruelty towards dogs and cats rose by
more than 8%. But while 1998 has seen a slight decrease in the number of
farm animal prosecutions taken by the RSPCA, an overall increase in convictions
was largely due to the sheer numbers of farm animals involved.
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