Alligator replay

On November 24, an employee of Sliter's in Bigfork brought a badly beaten six-month old kitten to the Flathead County Animal Control for rabies testing. The cat had been in Sliters store for about a week. Store employees tried to lure the cat out of the store to no avail. The morning of the incident, Tim Dalton (store manager) and two other employees tried to catch the kitten (without gloves); all three were bitten. Reacting to the pain of the bite, Mr. Dalton then bludgeoned the cat to death. Except, when it arrived at animal control, the poor animal was not yet dead; it was in shock and suffering from trauma to the head and bleeding from the nose. They euthanized the kitten and sent it in for rabies testing, then reported Mr. Dalton to the sheriff's office for cruelty to animals.

I hope you are as appalled and angry about this incident as I. The cruel beating and unnecessary death of this kitten was avoidable, Sliters staff should have called animal control or other qualified persons to trap and remove the kitten from store property alive and unharmed. Instead, they violate the animal cruelty Laws of the State of Montana.

This incident recalls the senseless cruelty of the "alligator incident" earlier this year. And yet the perpertrator(s) go unpunished. Rather than taking action, the sheriff's office has left it up to the county attorney to decide what action, if any, to take.

Such cruelty must not be condoned! Pray with me that Mr. Sliter and county authorities will do the right thing.

Catherine Haug

Bigfork