Feral cat colony housing set on fire
Morristown, NJ (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Mar 16, 2006
County: Morris
Disposition: Open
Case Images: 1 files available
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Police suspect fires that burned a small, makeshift shelter for stray cats between the NJ Transit commuter parking lot and the Midtown Shopping Center on Morris Street March 16, 2006 afternoon were intentionally set. The fire killed two kittens, estimated to be a few hours to a day old, said the Chatham man who created the colony and tends to the cats who live there, John Kuzmik. "I'm just kind of in shock," said Kuzmik said on the scene. "I can't believe it."
The blaze, first reported by police at 1:46 p.m. as brush fires, was doused by the town fire department. However, police returned and re-examined the site after the town's humane officer, Jim Osorio, visited the site. Detectives now say it appears several different fires were set and they will be interviewing people in the area to find witnesses or leads to suspects. No one was injured in the blaze, but its heat melted part of the chain-link fence between the commuter lot and the plaza. The alley between the commuter lot and the shopping plaza, where the colony was located, is known to be used by homeless people and other transients, police said. The alley was littered with beer cans and bottles, some blackened and burned.
Kuzmik said he believes the fires were set intentionally and is not ruling out anyone as a suspect, though he does not believe those who frequent the alley set the fire. "I think it's someone who had a design on doing this for some reason," Kuzmik said. The colony was approved by the town in hopes of controlling the population of stray cats in the area. Kuzmik and other volunteers already had been preparing to move the cats this weekend to another colony in Ewing.
The move was due to the imminent construction of a transit village by developers Rosewood Lafayette Commons and N.J. Transit. The project had been on hold since gaining town approval last year awaiting a new agreement that was struck late last month by the developer and transit authority. Kuzmik, who uses the train station to commute to work, said that in fall 2003, already familiar with the large number of stray cats around the train station, he noticed that litters of kittens were also being born there. That inspired Kuzmik to build a colony for the cats, allowing them a regular place to stay and a site where they can be picked up, neutered and either released or sent for adoption through nonprofit groups. "I just sort of took it upon myself as a humanitarian gesture," Kuzmik said.
The colony consisted of plastic totes sided by wood panels, and housed 10 to 12 cats as of Thursday. That number is half the number of cats he said used to live in the area when he created the colony. The cats are taken by Cause 4 Paws and Smitten By Kittens, two organizations that trap, neuter and either release the animals or find adoptive homes for them.
Osorio, the town's humane officer, said that the colony has helped curtail the area's cat problem. "We've cut down quite a bit from the population," he said. In that time, Kuzmik said, there have been no complaints from neighbors, business owners or anyone else about the colony. Some business owners in the plaza on Thursday said they didn't even know the colony was there and weren't sure that it was having an effect on the cat population. But Katherine Payne, a member of Smitten By Kittens, said the colony was having an effect.
Payne said last year the organization trapped, neutered and released 143 cats from the Morristown colony. Eighty of those cats were adopted, and Payne said the organization has targeted another 85 cats for the same procedure. "It's horrifying that someone did this," Payne said, surveying the wreckage. Kuzmik brought new plastic totes with holes cut for entrances for the cats, which now will be placed farther down the alley until the animals can be moved to the Ewing colony. If you have information on this case, please contact:
New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance
http://www.nj-ara.org/ferals
732-446-6808
References« NJ State Animal Cruelty Map
« More cases in Morris County, NJ
|
