Penn's Landing Safe Haven For Stray Cats Is Targeted For 3rd Time
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In the last two weeks, there have been at least three fires set to an outdoor animal shelter in the Penn's Landing area. The latest fire was set Saturday morning, and volunteers who made these shelters say they are not only worried about the cats, but people in the area.
Volunteers with a Stray Cat Relief group are trying to pick up the pieces of what is left of a stray cat outdoor shelter.
"I got a phone call at 8:20 this morning. I was told a friend had seen the fire. It was actually engulfed," said Karen O'Rourke, president of the Stray Cat Relief Fund.
Police and volunteers think the early-morning fire at the outdoor cat shelter in the Penn's Landing area Saturday was intentionally set.
"Every single feeding station every house anything the cats had for some kind of warmth they burnt to the ground," Orourke said.
Alexa Aarem, a volunteer with the Stray Cat Relief Fund said, "We are all upset we are distraught."
This fire devastates volunteers because they are not only the ones that built the shelters for cats in the area, they've neutered them and now nurture them.
None of the cats were harmed in this fire.
It is the third one that has been set in two weeks, and on top of that, the SPCA has responded to at least one cat found mutilated in the area recently.
"The people who are lighting these fires are also hanging, stabbing cats and throwing them in water," Aarem said.