A HEREFORD woman is pleading for information which could help put an end to a case of 'malicious cruelty' to squirrels in the Hampton Dene area of the city.

Wendy May, 69, said she has seen 12 squirrels with just a bloodied stump for a tail in her Hampton Dene garden over the last few months.

Now, police have distributed flyers to homes in the local area in a bid to catch the culprit.

Mrs May said: "I have lived in my cottage for 40 years and the garden is mainly given over to wild life. I have many wild birds, squirrels, rabbits, pheasants, the occasional fox and hedgehogs.

"This year for the first time I have had 12 squirrels with only a bloodied stump for a tail. Nothing like this has ever happened before. They are all uniform and the tails are being cut off in the same way. The stumps that are left are all the same.

"The first one I saw I thought perhaps it had got its tail caught but then I saw another one and another one and then when it was up to eight we decided something was happening."

Mrs May said the first sighting was in December but there have been several more since then.

Squirrels are well known for their big, bushy tails and they're extremely important for the animal's survival – used to help them balance and also to communicate.

It also keeps them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The squirrels in Mrs May's garden have still been climbing trees but she said that not only would the severance of the tail cause considerable pain to the animal, it could also cause infection and death.

"If a person is trapping them why aren't they killing them?" added Mrs May.

"I don't like seeing them like this. At the back of it all there's something quite nasty."

Police are appealing for anyone with information about this to come forward.

PC John Westlake, from West Mercia Police, said: "I have never dealt with anything like this. I was horrified because I'm an animal lover and can't tolerate cruelty to any animal at all.

"If you talk to people who know about people's minds they will say harming animals is a worrying trait in a person and can lead to more serious things.

"I'm taking it seriously because I love animals. We can't have that going on. It's malicious cruelty."

Anyone with information can call police on 101.