Rewards increased in animal abuse cases

Officials in Suffolk County boosted the cash rewards Monday for anyone helping them in the prosecution of those who abused seagulls and other wildlife in several recent cases.

The reward was increased to $11,000 for anyone who can help them find and get a conviction against the person who stoned a seagull to death in Montauk last month, said Chief Roy Gross of the Suffolk County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

A woman wearing a red bathing suit who was walking on the beach at the time might have taken pictures of the incident. "We are looking for that person or any other person who witnessed this incident to come forward," Gross said.

Gross said a patron at the Royal Atlantic Hotel in Montauk lured seagulls with bread on the afternoon of July 23, then started throwing rocks at them. One rock, the size of a brick, hit a gull and it began throwing up blood and bread, he said.

He said the reward had also been increased to $10,000, in a case where a seagull was impaled by an arrow in Patchogue on July 28, and another case where a dart apparently fired from a blow gun pierced a gull's head in Sag Harbor in mid-June.

The reward fund for the case of a turtle with a nail driven through its shell in Indian Island County Park last month has been increased to $16,250, and the case of a swan shot with an arrow in Sag Harbor last month now has a reward of $14,750, Gross said.