Welsh police mistook a tabby kitten for a Scottish wildcat and allegedly abused the animal

This is another example of the stupidity of UK police. Over and over again they screw up. They are as thick as bricks. In this instance it occurred in Wales. The police seized what is clearly a cute tabby kitten, Finlay, from an address in Conway, North Wales believing that he was an endangered Scottish wildcat! There are no Scottish wildcats in Wales. Pretty well everyone knows that. They seized the cat because they thought that Finlay was being kept without a licence.

Finlay - a tabby kitten seized by the idiotic police as an endangered Scottish wildcat! Pic in public domain.

They had the cat examined and decided that he was a standard tabby cat. But in the meantime, they had kept him in their custody in an inappropriate enclosure for over four months. Yes, it took them four months to figure out that they had a tabby kitten rather than a Scottish wildcat!! Idiots.

And the enclosure was unsuitable with mulch on the floor. Finlay is now in a rescue centre called Wildcat Haven. They say that when he was released by Welsh police, he was in a bad way having suffered psychological trauma. They say that he was "seized and detained, in our opinion, without due cause or reason by the North Wales police.

He was kept at an undisclosed location for 4.5 month and when he was seized by the police he was in prime physical condition and they had hoped that he would be cared for properly and returned in the same condition.

But sadly not. They say that "it is clear that Finlay has experienced serious physiological and psychological trauma at the hands of his captors". They mean the police. They further said that "We were assured by the police that Finlay was receiving specialist care. Such mental and physical deterioration in four-and-a-half months, does not suggest specialist care. It suggests abuse."

And that “The police also told us numerous times that Finlay was being kept in a naturalistic enclosure. However, notes provided to us by the police show that he was kept in an enclosure with a mulch floor. He didn’t even have grass under his feet."

North Wales police denied the abuse claims and said that he had been monitored for his well-being throughout. They say that while at the facility he was regularly examined by veterinary surgeons and that his weight remained stable. They say that investigators assessed Finlay's features and "found it may have a low proportion of wildcat genes" but not enough to consider it a Scottish wildcat. Ridiculous.

All domestic cats have some wildcat genes in them because they come from wildcats. Wildcats are their ancestors. There is no doubt in my mind that Finlay is a standard tabby kitten. A domestic cat. The North Wales police are acting idiotically and now trying to fudge the result by saying that Finlay had some wildcat in him.

As I said in the opening paragraph, this is another example of the UK police behaving badly and stupidly. If they only did their job and caught some criminals life would be a lot better in the UK. But they manage to catch just 5% of the criminals who've conducted criminal acts in this country. The criminals know that they will not be caught and the citizens of the UK are unsupported by the police. They are on their own.

Far too often UK police waste time on red herrings and escapades which are noncriminal when they should be focusing on crimes like burglary which they have completely abandoned and thefts.