15 cats found dead in NYC after apparently being thrown over fence: officials

More than a dozen cats have been found dead on a plot of land in Queens, sparking an animal cruelty investigation as rescuers suspect they were thrown over a mesh fence.

According to Megan Licari, president of Puppy Kitty NY City, 15 of the animals were found on Saturday near 102nd Street and 115th Avenue in Howard Beach – on the other side of the fence separating a residential area from an area overgrown with shrubs and grass.

Licari said she learned about the heartbreaking discovery when a neighbor sent her pictures.

“I rushed there to see it with my own eyes because a neighbor was having trouble getting a response from the police,” Licari told The Post on Wednesday.

“So I got there and… it was so heartbreaking because most of them are little kittens and just seeing their little claws and their lifeless little bodies is just heartbreaking.

“Then you just start thinking, like, ‘What happened to them? Who did it?’ And your mind starts kind of wandering,” she said.

According to Licari, all the felids turned out to be strays or feral cats in “various stages of decomposition.”

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Licari returned to the scene again the next day, joined by an ASPCA law enforcement official.

“He gave me permission to take one of the bodies that I could reach, because it seemed to be hanging on the fence,” Licari said, “which leads us to believe that they were transferred, as happened with this body. not be in time.”

The ASPCA removed the rest of the bodies, Licari said.

The ASPCA said in a statement that it is “supporting this ongoing investigation by conducting post-mortem examinations on the cats to help gather evidence and help determine the cause of death” at the request of the NYPD.

The NYPD has confirmed that its animal cruelty team is investigating.

The cause of death was not immediately known.

The incident comes just weeks after Licari’s organization rescued three cats with “similar paw injuries” in Richmond Hill.

One of the cats had to be put down due to her extensive injuries, Licari said, but the other two are recovering.

“I believe cat abuse happens every single day,” Licari said. “We just don’t hear about it and we just can’t prove it. But there is a lot of cruelty to animals, and this is proof of that.

“You know, we stumbled upon these cats by accident,” she added. “We just managed to get the right people to respond. So I think that this indicates an existing problem. It’s definitely not just these cases. There are a lot of other things going on and it’s very sad.”