Weapon attacks on cats and wildlife surge

Nada explores a worrying and increasing rise in airguns, slingshots and crossbows being used to injure and kill pets, birds and foxes

Rocket after he was attacked (Image: Emma Gordon)

Emma Gordon says she will never forget the morning when she found 10-month-old Rocket meowing in agony on her living room floor.

The 50-year-old civil servant had expected to find her cat waiting at the bottom of the stairs where he normally greeted her. But instead he was fighting for his life.

She said: “He was absolutely petrified and shaking on the floor with his eye socket bleeding.

“It was horrific. I rushed him to the vets who initially thought he must have caught his eye on a twig or thorn and immediately began to operate.”

But before the procedure was completed the vet called to tell Emma that Rocket had been heartlessly attacked by an air gun and would need to have his right eye removed to survive and his jaw had also been shattered. Another pellet was lodged in his skull.

Emma from Carlton, Nottingham said: “The vet said one pellet had stopped on a little bit of bone behind the cranial cavity. It's that bit of bone that saved his life. If it had gone straight into his brain, it would have killed him.”