Man catnaps stray moggie suspected of pigeon murder

The fur and feathers are flying in a Beijing hutong after a pigeon breeder accused his neighbor's cat of devouring his prized bird, allegedly worth 100,000 yuan ($15,990).

The breeder, surnamed Li, who lives in Dongsi Batiao, Dongcheng district, captured a feline suspect, and condemned it for having eaten one of his precious homing pigeons.

He then demanded a female neighbor, Wang Chunrong, should compensate him for the murder of his pigeon, holding the captured cat as collateral.

Wang, however, claims that she is not the cat's owner, but only one of several local residents who feed the neighborhood's strays.

Local police, called in by the local residential committee to mediate the dispute, have pointed the finger at another culprit, and have named the top suspect as a weasel.

Li told the Global Times that he discovered the grisly remains on Sunday morning.

"When I climbed on to the roof I discovered the window of my pigeon coop was open, and all the birds were jumping up and down," Li said.

"Then I discovered a cat was trapped inside, and one of my pigeons was dead. It had been half-eaten," he said.

Later on, Li claimed, someone cleared the remains away, leaving only a single claw behind as proof.

"I've raised this pigeon since 2009, and it's been in nearly 20 races," said Li, "its father was worth more than 80,000 yuan."

After he trapped the suspected cat burglar, Li sought the owner, who he believed was his neighbor Wang.

However, Wang denied the accusation, adding she does not own the cat, and also disputes that the cat is in fact the culprit.

"I only fed the cat for several months last year, and I'm not the only one feeding it," said Wang,

"Many neighbors feed it and it's always full, so I don't think it has any reason to eat the pigeon," she said.

Moreover, said Wang, Li has no hard evidence that the cat was responsible for the pigeon's death.

"When Li found me, the cat was already in a separate cage, and he had no photos or other record showing it broke into the pigeon cage," said Wang.

She asserted that the bars on the pigeon coop are not wide enough for a cat to squeeze through, and suggested the real killer was a weasel, as there are many in the area.

Local police, after inspecting at the crime scene, supported the weasel theory.

"From all the evidence we found, there is no proof that a cat killed the pigeon. It was probably a weasel," said the officer assigned to the case, who declined to reveal his name.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the cat remains a mystery.

Li has accused Wang of stealing the pigeon remains and liberating the cat, claiming they disappeared on Sunday afternoon while he was out.

Wang denies knowing anything about the fate of the cat, but she did admit that she visited Li's home on Sunday afternoon.

"I went to his place with some other animal lovers, as we were trying to solve the case," said Wang, "because when I asked Li whether he would kill the cat, he said it 'deserved something more than death.'" Li had refused an offer of 2,000 yuan to euthanize the cat, said Wang.

"We couldn't find him at his place, so we left, and I have no idea how the cat escaped," she said.

But Li has been creating a noisy racket around Wang's house all day Monday, Wang claimed.

"It has even triggered my daughter's epilepsy," she said.

Ding Haichao, who sells racing pigeons, said that 100,000 yuan could be a reasonable estimate for the price of a pigeon.

"The value of homing pigeons can be different from people to people, so it's not easy to estimate Li's loss. This is not the highest price I ever heard of, as the most expensive homing pigeon on Beijing's market is 3 million yuan," said Ding.