Reward of up to £1,000 Offered After Gull Shot With Arrow in Blackpool

For Immediate Release:

3 August 2020

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

Reward of up to £1,000 Offered After Gull Shot With Arrow in Blackpool

PETA Seeks Public’s Help in Finding Person Who Injured Seabird

Blackpool – PETA is offering a reward of up to £1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for shooting a gull with a crossbow. According to reports, the injured bird – who still has the bolt lodged in his or her body – was first spotted in Blackpool at the end of May. Despite being visibly impaled, the bird appears to be in miraculously good health.

“Someone in the area must have seen something or know something about the cruel individual who committed this callous act,” says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “A person capable of deliberately causing a helpless animal this kind of suffering demonstrates a deeply worrying psychological state and must be found.”

History shows that past incidents involving cruelty to animals regularly appear in the records of society’s most violent criminals. Young killers Mary Bell, Robert Thompson, and Jon Venables as well as serial murderers Ian Huntley, Thomas Hamilton (the Dunblane massacre), Fred West, Dennis Nilsen, Ian Brady, and Raoul Moat all started out by deliberately harming animals.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – notes that gulls are intelligent, sensitive birds who are resourceful in adapting to new situations and learning new types of behaviour, such as breaking open hard-shelled molluscs by dropping them onto rocks. They also mate for life and are devoted parents.

Anyone with information about the shooting is encouraged to call the RSPCA on 0300 1234 999.

For more information about helping animals, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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