A 63-year-old local man, working as a taxi driver, has at last been detained by the Public Security Police Force after several reports from citizens finding injured and dead pigeons and other animals stuck in metal traps. The PSP reported their discovery of the man yesterday during the regular joint press conference of the police forces.
According to a PSP spokesperson police have received a total of six complaints of the same kind from citizens in the last two months. Pigeons and other birds were found in metal traps inside or in the surrounds of the Lou Lim Ioc Garden in Macau.
After their investigation, the police finally spotted a suspicious man around 5 p.m. Sunday March 13, living in a low-rise building next to the Garden.
On his rooftop, officers found a total of nine set metal traps and inside the housing unit, they found another three.
Taken into questioning the man admitted to having bought and placed the traps saying that he had acquired them to catch mice.
He told the police that he had bought a total of 40 of these traps through an online store about one year ago and that he successfully caught some mice with them.
Later last year, suspecting that the birds were damaging his potted plants, the man decided to set the traps to catch them.
During the investigation, the PSP found blood stains and feathers on the rooftop and plants but no signs of any evidence of mice. The suspect told the police that after catching the mice he would throw them into the rubbish bin but he also admitted to having found a few birds, namely pigeons, in the same traps.
He used meat and other food as bait to attract the animals to the traps.
The case has been transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office to charge the suspect under Article 25 of the Animal Protection Law, which states, “Whoever, with the intention of inflicting pain and suffering on an animal, treats it by cruel or violent means or using torture, which results in serious mutilation, loss of important organs or death, is punished with imprisonment up to one year or a fine up to [the equivalent of] 120 days.”
