animals

Jen Goss, found of Catty Shack, a cat and kitten rescue, and Kasey Thompson, with kittens that will soon be available for adoption during a garage sale at the corner of Batavia Elba Townline Road and Route 98 (Daws Corners) this afternoon.

The garage sale continues on Sunday as is a fundraiser for Catty Shack.

Catty Shack will have at least 15 kittens available for adoption in a few weeks. They will be vetted and spayed and neutered. 

Jenn Martino-West shared this picture from early this morning of a deer helping herself to birdseed on South Pearl Street.

A State trooper is out with a vehicle on Route 33 just outside of the city and reports there is a person there tying balloons to deer carcasses.

A dispatcher chimes in, "I've seen a lot of that on social media."

UPDATE 4:18 p.m.: The trooper asks that somebody come out and remove the carcasses. "These deer have become quite the spectacle," the trooper said. He said school buses have stopped and other cars stop and look. The person he talked to wasn't there placing balloons but taking pictures.

UPDATE 5:48 p.m.: Photos added.

Yesterday, there was a report of a dog locked in a car on South Lake Avenue in Bergen but according to a woman who said she witnessed the whole thing, it didn't go down anything like the way it was reported to law enforcement.

Julianna Kalke said the dog was in the car no more than five or 10 minutes -- not the 45 minutes originally reported -- and not only did the owner roll down all the windows but she stayed by the car the whole time and talked with the dog.

The woman, Kalke said, stopped for a cigarette break.

"I am an absolute animal lover and attended Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine and I did not see any harm to the animal," Kalke said. "If anything, the owner was doing the right thing by exiting the car so the dog did not inhale secondhand smoke."

Kalke described the woman who reported the dog in the car to dispatchers as "rude" to the dog's owner.

"(She was) harassing the poor woman who was just trying to do the right thing," Kalke said.

A fawn was rescued and reunited with its mother Saturday night after four local men heard the fawn's plaintive cries in a storm drain and decided to grab their rubber boots and flashlights and try to help it out of the storm drain.

Tyler Hale first became aware of the fawn's plight earlier in the day when he saw a doe hovering near a storm drain grate on Holmes Avenue. After a while, the doe went into the woods and Hale walked over to the grate and he could see the fawn. Hale spent a couple of hours trying to get the fawn out of the storm drain but the little guy just went further into the storm drain.

That night, his friends -- Joe Canzeroni, Kyle Maniace, and Chris Grammatico -- went over to Hale's house for a bonfire. When one of them went behind a shed to get more firewood, he could hear the fawn's cries.

The cries "sounded almost like a baby," Maniace said.

That's when the four men decided they should try again to rescue the fawn.

The four of them each went to different drains and storm drain openings to try and figure out where the animal was.  

Maniace went down into the storm drain and found the fawn about 150 to 200 yards down a pipe. 

"After I got a little further around the bend I could see its eyes flashing at me, pretty much like a deer in the headlights -- just standing there and not knowing what to do," Maniace said.

He grabbed the fawn.

"We heard Kyle say a few streets over -- 'I got him!' " said Canzeroni, who shot the video of Maniace bringing the fawn out of the storm drain.

Kyle used his shirt to wrap the fawn in and keep him warm.

The group then brought the fawn to the fire, warmed up him and dried him off. When the fawn regained its strength to walk on its own, they put him back where the mother had last been seen. About two hours later, mother returned and retrieved her baby.

The Batavian's news partner 13WHAM contributed to this story.

Genesee County Park hosted its inaugural Park Paws dog walk event today and only three canines participated, though several more dog owners signed up who didn't show up.

While in the park, we also came across a group of riders on horseback (photos below).

Sam is missing. He is missing from the area of Route 20 and East Road in Bethany.

His family asks, "please return him, no questions asked."

If you see him, call (585) 356-0820 (Debbie) or (585) 356-0824 (Tom).

City police are out with a possibly injured Rottweiler at 2 Cedar St. but don't yet have it in custody.

The officer says the dog appears friendly.

The dog may have a leg injury.

Somehow Barney, who never goes out of the house, got out of his house on Fargo Road, between Clapsaddle Road and Sweetland Road, in Stafford.

Barney weighs 13 pounds, is an American shorthair and is declawed.  

"He's very friendly and deeply missed," said Adam Reich.

UPDATE 12:39 p.m.: Barney decided it was time to come home. He's safe.

Phyllis Seager sent in this picture about an hour ago of a possum stuck on a fence in the 300 block of East Main Street, Batavia.

She said she wanted to get the possum down but the folks at the neighboring business wouldn't let her.

UPDATE 9 p.m.: Seager said the possum was still there as of 8 p.m. I drove by at 8:45 p.m. and it was gone. Seager said she doesn't know how it got down. She's hoping once it got dark the possum got brave enough to get down on its own.

A caller reports a 14-year-old girl is throwing rocks at geese at the DeWitt Recreation Area in Batavia.

Batavia PD dispatched.

Otto, a German Shorthair Pointer, doesn't like the cold, but he may be out there somewhere or holed up in a nice cozy home if somebody had taken him in, but his owner, Katie Grant, is devastated that he's missing.

He was last seen in the area of Genesee Street near Ellenwood Road in Corfu.

He has an orange collar.

Katie can be reached at 585 297 0721 or 716 939 0330

She said he will seek out people and try to get inside homes to escape the cold.

"Bring my baby home," she said. "He's never been lost before."

UPDATE March 19: Reader Rick Hensel informs all that the dog is home safe and sound.

After six days missing, an Alexander farmer today spotted Blue, the English pointer we reported missing over the weekend.

Christina said the farmer called today with the good news he had found Blue.

"We are happy to say he is home now," she said. "We are grateful to have him home safe."

A driver spotted a German shepherd wearing a bandana walking along the roadway in Bergen and stopped, opened her car down and the dog jumped in.

The dog seemed friendly at first, the caller told a dispatcher, but now it's growled a couple of times.

The caller is parked at the 7-Eleven in Bergen awaiting the arrival of Animal Control.

UPDATE 2:45 p.m.: As Animal Control was showing up at the 7-Eleven, so did the dog's owner. Owner and dog reunited.

Blue is missing. Blue is a 2-year-old English pointer who went missing Friday afternoon around Stannard Road, Alexander. He ran off chasing a deer and hasn't been seen by Ben and Christina since. He was last seen wearing an orange collar with an ID and a red collar with a big bell.

If you can help Blue get home to Ben and Christina call either (716) 572-2591 or (910) 382-0341.

A Le Roy fox hunter says he had to chase a woman he believes stole his hunting dog this morning at speeds that reached 60 mph on Route 33 before a state trooper arrived on scene and initiated a traffic stop. 

The woman, who was in tears, the hunter said, told the trooper, according to Troop A's public information officer, Trooper James O'Callahan, that she thought she had found a lost dog and was taking the animal to State Street Animal Hospital.

The hunter, who asked not to be identified, said he was hunting on Griswold Road with the local property owner when he heard his dog bark. He walked a couple hundred yards down Griswold but the dog was nowhere in sight.

"I thought, there's no way that dog could run that fast," he said.

He went back to his truck and drove back down Griswold. Just then, he saw a sedan pulling away.  

The dog was wearing a GPS collar, he said, so he knew the dog was in the car. Pretty soon, he said, he noticed he was still behind the car, but the GPS signal was behind his location, which meant, he believes, the woman with the dog had removed the collar and thrown it out the car window.

He followed the woman down Route 33 and she was eventually stopped at Seven Springs Road.

The problem for the trooper, in deciding whether to file charges against the woman, O'Callahan said, is that the hunter didn't see the woman remove the collar and she said the dog didn't have a collar.  Though the collar was found at the location near where the dog was picked up, there isn't sufficient proof the woman removed the collar.  Without that, there's no proof of a crime, O'Callahan said.

The owner called The Batavian to clarify that the dog was not taken from a residence.

"I don't want people to think there is somebody going around taking people's dogs from their homes," he said.

(Initial Report)

Area wildlife photographers were shocked and saddened Friday to find a dead snowy owl Friday afternoon atop a utility pole near the Genesee County Airport.

The DEC confirmed today that it was notified of a dead snowy owl that had been banded at that location.

National Grid, after being contacted by the DEC on Friday, assisted in recovering the animal from atop the utility pole (see video below).

Local photographer Jim Burns (who freelances for The Batavian) is a wildlife photographer and a frequent visitor to the airport, which attracts both numerous snowy owls and photographers. He said such deaths as this animal's are not uncommon. The owls fall victim to electrocution (the possible cause in this case), being hit by cars and poisoning. 

Poisoning is perhaps the most preventable cause of death of snowy owls. The owls feast on rodents and if the rodents were poisoned before becoming an owl's meal, the owl is poisoned as well.

"That's the main message to get out there," Burns said. "People should put out traps instead of poison."

Though still rare, the birds have been showing up in WNY in recent years, probably, because their northern hunting grounds are becoming crowded. It's generally the younger birds who migrate south. Burns estimated the deceased owl was no more than 2 years old.

The birds are banded by Operation SNOWstorm, which tracks snowy owls to assist in their preservation.  

The Department of Environmental Conservation asks that if you find a dead banded bird, report it on the website www.reportband.gov.

Photo by Margy Meath.Video by Oded Kalir.

Jason Bell sent us this picture of a bald eagle he spotted in Pembroke yesterday.

A resident in Byron noticed a cat carrier on her porch on Friday. The door was open and when she took a quick look inside, there was no cat.

She left the tan carrier, with a black handle, on the porch not thinking much of it until today when she looked inside and found a male black and white cat.

The unneutered cat is about 9 months old, said Animal Control Officer Agie Jaroszewski.

The cat has apparently been going in and out of the carrier since being abandoned.

Jaroszewski said there was a blanket in the carrier but this morning it was covered with snow.

The cat is now warm and safe at the shelter.

If anybody knows who abandoned the cat, call the Sheriff's Office at (585) 343-5000.