As of Tuesday afternoon, Missoula Animal Control had collected half a dozen of the 4-inch-long, steel-tipped darts that have been found in the necks and faces of cats and dogs, to the horror of their owners.
Jeff Darrah, Animal Control’s supervisor, said the phone at his office has been ringing off the hook with reports after his office posted a Facebook message for people to be on alert.
“We started getting calls yesterday,” he said. “It started with a gentleman who had a dog on his property in a kennel. He found a dart in its neck. Then as we posted stuff, it just kind of started going. We got a report of another dart in a lady’s cat. It was stuck in its chest.”
Next, a woman reported finding a dart in her cat’s face, and more calls started pouring in.
Isabel Snyders of Lolo sent Animal Control a photo of her cat Lily with a dart lodged in its neck.
"It went through a corner of her lungs," Snyders explained.
The incident happened Sept. 24.
"(Lily) didn't come home that night," Snyders remembered. "Then in the morning, she wandered into the garage with a blowdart in her neck. It was horrible. At first I thought it was maybe an accident. Nobody shoots a cat on purpose. I can't believe someone would shoot a bunch of animals with a blowdart gun."
Snyders said she and her fellow Lolo neighbors are desperately hoping the perpetrators are caught soon.
"It's not OK to go around shooting people's pets and not get punished for it," she said.
Miraculously, all of the pets so far appear to have survived, but there are some people in the area who have reported their cats missing.
“At this point, there are no dead animals, but some cats are missing,” Darrah said. “There are two cats in one area running around with darts, and we are trying to trap them right now.”
Some people may not have reported dart shootings, believing they were isolated incidents, and now the office is getting calls from other people who found darts in their animals two weeks ago.
So far, the only information about a possible suspect is one Lolo resident who saw a white truck outside their house late at night before discovering a dart in their pet, but that hasn’t been confirmed.
The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incidents and has assigned a detective.
Brenda Bassett, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, said anyone who finds their animals injured — or knows something about the shootings — should call 911 to file a report and call Animal Control at 541-7387.
The incidents have occurred across Lolo, but the dog incident on Monday came from a man with a fenced yard on Mantle Way. The other incidents occurred on Red Fox Road, Tyler Way and Lantern Ridge Road.
Darrah has collected three of the darts at his office so far.
Each one has an orange suction cup on the back and a razor-sharp tip, and Darrah said they look like they came from a model of blowgun made by Cold Steel.
That gun is about 4 feet long and an inch in diameter, and could be mistaken for a black walking stick.
“Right now, we have three different styles of dart,” he said. “They are very sharp. These blowdart guns can be deadly.”
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| In June a news article said bunnies were being shot |
When asked if the attempted killing of innocent pets makes his blood boil, Darrah could only nod his head in disgust.
“It does,” he said. “You can just about guess that these are young males with nothing better to do.”
So far, anonymous donors have pledged to give Animal Control $400 as a reward for information leading to an arrest.
(Missoulian - Oct 6, 2015)
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