PORTER TOWNSHIP -- Animal officers have been investigating carcasses found in a creek in Schuylkill County. At first, they were thought to be the remains of nine puppies with crushed skulls.
One of the animal carcasses found in the creek outside Tower City was taken to a pathologist in Harrisburg. That pathologist determined the remains were not of nine puppies, but of nine foxes.
Volunteers poured in Tuesday afternoon to help remove animal remains found in this creek just outside Tower City.
Originally, there was outrage over the belief that the carcasses removed might be puppies and this might be a horrible case of animal cruelty. Their heads were crushed, and their carcasses were decomposing.
"I never saw anything like it," said Angie Bixler of Paws For A Cause PA. "The puppies were all kind of intertwined. My one friend said it looked like they were all hugging each other and it really did. I kind of got tears in my eyes when he said that."
Bixler buried the animal remains and the Ruth Steinert Memorial SPCA near Pine Grove took one of the dumped carcasses to a pathologist to determine the breed.
Bixler said several veterinarians had preliminarily determined the remains were those of puppies, so it was a surprise, and slight relief when the pathologist determined that the remains were foxes, likely trapped and killed by a hunter.
For animal cruelty officials, this is not the case of animal abuse they originally thought, but a case of hunting or trapping of foxes.
Whoever did trap these foxes may still face some potential trouble for illegal dumping in the creek.
