Grisly Discoveries at Pa. Cat 'Death Camp'

April 30, 2008

PITTSBURGH –- Some 500 cats, many dead mixed with those living, were neglected in contaminated squalor, according to testimony yesterday during a pre-trial hearing for Linda Bruno, owner of Tiger Ranch (pictured left), a supposed cat sanctuary shut down by authorities in one of the biggest anti-cruelty raids in Pennsylvania history.

Dr. Ravi Murarka, veterinarian for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA), testified in Allegheny County Court that the ranch was so infection-ridden, he contracted bronchitis at the facility, which was raided last month.

“It’s a death camp,” Howard Nelson, director of the Philadelphia-based SPCA, said. The SPCA orchestrated the raid at the 28-acre ranch, located in Tarentum, about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The ranch billed itself as a non-profit adoption center, medical facility and hospice.

A former ranch volunteer, Deb Urman, provided the SPCA with undercover video documenting the horrific conditions the cats were kept in.

In all, 380 live cats and 106 dead ones were discovered at the ranch, according to Lisa Rodgers, SPCA Director of Outreach.

“I’ve never, ever seen, in 17 years with the SPCA and 35 in a practice, a condition like this,” Murarka told Pet Pulse.

“There was a dead cat in the litter pan, and some cats died while we were there,” Rodgers told Pet Pulse.

Every cat found at the ranch suffered from an epidemic of infectious viruses, especially Feline Calcivirus, Murarka said. This left the cats with a variety of debilitating conditions, including pneumonia, arthritis, Gangrene, Chlamydia, E. coli and damage to the central nervous system, Murarka said.

“I never saw a situation like this where, when I’m examining the cats, the cats are so dehydrated, emaciated, they are skin and bones,” Murarka said. “Some of them are suffering with pneumonia and dying right on my exam tables.

“They cannot walk, they cannot eat, they cannot breathe. They are suffering so badly with this virus,” Murarka said, adding many cats were found comatose.

“You name the virus, and most of these viruses are there in these cats,” Murarka said.

“The discharge, their eyes were crusted over, their noses,” Rodgers said. “One cat, you could barely see his face. I can’t imagine he was still alive.”

Bruno, aka “Lin Marie,” is charged with 203 misdemeanor counts of willfully and maliciously killing, maiming, mutilating, torturing or disfiguring a cat, as well as 371 summary counts of cruelly ill-treating, beating, or otherwise abusing an animal, or neglecting the animal from care, food, water, clean shelter, and veterinary care.

To accommodate a large turnout of Bruno supporters and detractors, yesterday’s hearing was moved from Judge Suzanne Blaschak’s West Deer courtroom to the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh. About 50 Bruno supporters rallied last month outside her ranch.

The pre-trial hearing included hours of testimony and a five-hour slideshow, illustrating conditions at the ranch. Aside from the cats, authorities found nine dogs, eight horses, chickens and a goat on Bruno’s property. She faces charges involving the horses and goat.

“I can prove to you with my volunteers, and my staff and my friends, that we’ve healed cats with our vets,” Bruno told WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh last month. “We’ve taken cats out of medical treatment and they’ve lived.”

WTAE obtained Urman’s undercover video, showing live and dead cats being housed together in the same room.

“I looked at the tapes,” Bruno told the station. “I feel that there’s some plants in there, that they moved cats out of one area and into another, out of our medical treatment area into these buildings.

“We do have cats die, and that happens. Not that they die without treatment. Not that they die without food. The food and water bowls are clearly visible.”

Dead cats were discovered piled into four freezers, Rodgers said.

“Just like you do at a vet’s office, we put them in a freezer and we bury them,” Bruno said. “When we haven’t buried cats, I mean, it’s winter. You can’t bury cats in winter. You can’t dig the ground.”

SPCA officials, however, say undercover video obtained last fall shows similar conditions. A wide crater about one story deep was found dug on Bruno’s property after the raid, Rodgers said.

“They had these cats in the freezer, saying that the ground was frozen so she couldn’t bury them,” Rodgers said. “But the pit looked to me to be freshly dug. The soil was soft.”

Of the living cats found at the shelter, many had to be euthanized or died while being transported to a makeshift shelter and animal hospital in Clarion County. At present, 274 cats have survived there, though it’s still too soon to know their prognosis, Murarka said.

Authorities have ordered Bruno to have no contact with animals. While her ranch is closed, though, its Web site remains up. The site, DefendTigerRanch.org, has been redesigned since the raid, Rodgers said.

The site’s homepage includes the messages, “Tiger Ranch Under Attack,” and “Tiger Ranch supporters can still gather at Tiger Ranch in the morning, to travel down together,” to the Bruno’s next court date, May 6. No trial date has been set in the case.

In 2008, Bruno’s records show her ranch took in 786 cats while adopting out nine, according to Rodgers, who says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“Prior to that, there were thousands of cats that had been taken in,” Rodgers said of the alleged adoption, medical center and hospice facility.

“Where did these cats go?” she asked. “People think that they were back there to live out their lives, and obviously they got inflicted with this strain of Calsivirus.

“And if Ms. Bruno had a veterinarian that was taking care of those cats, it certainly wasn’t going as well as anyone could have hoped.”

Since the ranch was shut down, the PSPCA has received approximately 30 e-mails from people who sent their cats to Tiger Ranch, Rodgers said.

“And they’re just aghast at the fact that their cats might be dead,” she said. “And unfortunately, we don’t have great news for them. And not until the evidence is released can we try and reunite some of these owners with these cats.”

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