Officers from the Guardia Civil's Seprona division. (Archive image.) | Alejandro Sepúlveda

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A 70-year-old resident of Sineu faces a prison sentence of up to twelve months for having shot dead his neighbour's two cats.

On Sunday, the neighbour heard some shots, could not find the cats and feared the worst. He looked over into the next door property and saw that the two cats were dead in a cage. The Guardia Civil and local police ascertained that the accused had enticed the cats into a cage by using quail as bait. He then apparently shot them from close range with a pellet gun. He was fed up with the cats coming onto his land.

The gun was confiscated, and the matter is now in the hands of a court in Inca. The Guardia Civil's Seprona division has charged him with animal abuse. Under the penal code, this carries a sentence of between three months and a year.

This is not the first case of cats being shot. In Cala Murada, Manacor, an investigation remains open into the shooting of some fifty cats from a cat colony between October 2019 and March last year. Some cats were injured, others were killed. The perpetrator has not yet been found.