RSPCA called to more cases involving multiple pets
Charity leaders said they feared the increase was partly due to a growth in pet ownership during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Comparing cases between June and August 2024 and the same period in 2023 Devon saw calls rise from 557 to 643 while Cornwall saw a drop from 309 to 218.
Emily Bowen, CEO of RSPCA Cornwall, said: "There might be one call that goes in but when the inspector gets there they might be faced with multiple animals that then require removal from that property."
She said the charity had seen "a lot of cases of neglect where animals are emaciated".
"That seems a bit more common this year than in previous years and we are not really sure of the reasons for that," Ms Bowen said.
In one case, a woman from Cornwall was taken to court and banned from keeping animals for five years after the RSPCA prosecuted her for abusing a pony.
She was caught on camera kicking and punching the animal.
The court heard it suffered mentally and physically due to the attacks and was also kept in poor conditions.
The pony was removed and has since gone on to find a loving home.
The RSPCA said it usually sees a spike in reports over the summer, as longer summer days meant more people were out and likely to witness violence.
Nationally, the charity said it took one call reporting animal cruelty every two minutes its lines were open - averaging 374 reports a day.
George, a cane corso - a type of mastiff, was found emaciated and neglected in a house in Cornwall with about 20 other dogs and cats.
The owner was prosecuted and, while all the other dogs and cats have found homes, George is still looking for a foster home or a family wanting to adopt him.
More news stories for Cornwall
Listen to the latest news for Cornwall
While many animals go on to get rehomed relatively quickly, some stay with the RSPCA longer.
Lulu, a cross breed, as been in the RSPCA's care for nearly two years.
She was the only dog in the home she came from, so is nervous around other dogs.
However, she was "great with people and kids aged 10+", the charity said.
RSPCA chief inspector Ian Briggs, an expert in cruelty cases, said: "We are seeing a shocking rise in the number of seasonal calls reporting animal cruelty to our emergency line.
He said: "Sadly the summer months tend to be when these reports peak.
"This year, sadly, we fear the trend will continue and we are busier than ever rescuing animals from many awful situations."
Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.
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Los Angeles Times
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The country's latest denaturalization case occurred in mid-June when a federal judge revoked the citizenship of Elliott Duke, an American military veteran from the U.K. who was convicted a decade ago of receiving and possessing child-porn images while stationed in Germany — a crime he did not disclose on his naturalization application before becoming a U.S. citizen in 2013. Trump and Mamdani The issue became even more heated after the Trump administration raised the possibility of stripping Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York City, of his U.S. citizenship as part of the crackdown against foreign-born citizens convicted of certain offenses. The spurious allegation, known to be false, is that Mamdani may have concealed his support for 'terrorism' during the naturalization process. Mamdani, 33, who calls himself a Democratic socialist, was born in Uganda to ethnic Indian parents, became a U.S. citizen in 2018 and has attracted widespread media attention over his vocal support for Palestinian rights. Trump, during a visit last week to the new Everglades detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, was asked about Mamdani's pledge to 'stop masked' Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents 'from deporting our neighbors.' Trump responded: 'Well, then, we'll have to arrest him.' Mamdani posted a statement on X: 'The President of the United States just threatened to have me arrested, stripped of my citizenship, put in a detention camp and deported. Not because I have broken any law but because I will refuse to let ICE terrorize our city.' Miami test case Longtime North Miami immigration attorney Andre Pierre, who toiled for years on a landmark denaturalization case, said he has seen both Democratic and Republican administrations pursue aggressive immigration policies — but no president has made the issue as controversial and visible as Trump. Pierre said Trump ran for re-election on the campaign promise of ridding the country of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of committing crimes, along with gang members from El Salvador and Venezuela. But as soon as he was sworn in as president for a second term, he said, Trump started going after everyday, working-class Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans and other immigrants with temporary protected status or humanitarian parole. 'A lot of people in these communities voted for for him and didn't think he was going to go that far,' Pierre told the Herald. Pierre said it was only a matter of time before the Trump administration would zero in on naturalized foreign-born citizens in the United States. But after reviewing the Justice Department's list of priorities for denaturalization cases, he came away dismayed. 'This memo is shocking,' Pierre said. 'But I don't see a lot of evidence supporting the kind of cases they want to go after.' Decades ago, Pierre represented a Haitian restaurant owner in Miami who applied for naturalization in November 1994, was approved in February 1996 and took the oath of allegiance and became a naturalized citizen in April 1996. But that fall, Lionel Jean-Baptiste was arrested on cocaine distribution charges, convicted at trial and sentenced to eight years in prison. Evidence showed that Jean-Baptiste committed the crime in March 1995 while his application for naturalization was still awaiting approval by the U.S. government — a fact that would ultimately undo his citizenship. After his conviction, government lawyers moved to revoke his naturalization status in what was considered to be a 'test' case, claiming he illegally procured his citizenship because he failed to show 'good moral character' during the application process. A federal trial judge agreed — a decision affirmed in 2005 by a federal appeals court in Atlanta. The key issue was whether the mere allegation of criminal activity against the Haitian immigrant demonstrated a lack of good moral character, a requirement for naturalization. 'The case dragged on for years,' Pierre said. 'It went all the way up to the Supreme Court.' After Jean-Baptiste, 77, lost his naturalization status, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was then able to take the next step of deporting him to Haiti. U.S. v. Fedorenko The Justice Department's new memo on denaturalization policies suggests that government lawyers might be able to pick ripe cases and expedite naturalized citizens as part of the Trump administration's aggressive goal of deporting millions of illegal immigrants. But a historic South Florida case that lasted for years suggests otherwise, because of the extraordinary due process afforded the defendant: Feodor Fedorenko, a former guard at the infamous Treblinka death camp in Poland, where the Nazis killed about 900,000 Jews during the Holocaust. When the Ukrainian-born Fedorenko applied for a visa to enter the United States in 1949, he lied about his activities during the war. He was granted a visa and lived in the U.S. under the radar for about 20 years. He then applied for U.S. citizenship and once again lied about his activities during the war and failed to disclose his collaboration with the Nazis in carrying out war crimes. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen and continued with his life working at a factory in Connecticut — until his retirement in Miami Beach. Authorities caught up with him. In 1978, federal prosecutors moved to strip Fedorenko of citizenship at trial before U.S. District Judge Norman Roettger in Fort Lauderdale. Fedorenko's case, which was cited several times in the Jean-Baptiste ruling by the appeals court, featured dramatic testimony by a half-dozen Jewish survivors of Treblinka who were living in Israel, by Fedorenko himself and by character witnesses. When asked about the gas chambers at the camp, Fedorenko testified that he never went near them, though he could see them from the guard tower where he was stationed occasionally, according to 2014 book, 'Forgotten Trials of the Holocaust.' Fedorenko, who considered himself a 'prisoner of war' even though he worked as a private in the German army, acknowledged that the Germans gave him a gun. But he denied that he ever whipped or shot an inmate. The lead Justice Department lawyer, Jon Sale, who had been an assistant special Watergate prosecutor, was tasked with proving by 'clear and convincing' evidence that Fedorenko illegally procured his citizenship by hiding his past as a Nazi guard from U.S. immigration authorities. But in the end, Roettger rejected the testimony of the Treblinka survivors and spared Fedorenko from being denaturalized. Although Roettger was not entirely convinced of Fedorenko's 'do no evil' depiction of himself as a Treblinka guard, the judge never took the next step of finding that his denial of what witnesses said about him was also untrue. Sale's team appealed, and the judge's ruling was overturned in 1979. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling, leading to the former Nazi guard's denaturalization. 'Even then, his due process rights continued to be honored when the Immigration and Naturalization Service afforded him administrative hearings and appeals,' Sale, a prominent defense lawyer in Miami, told the Herald. 'After all this due process, he was finally deported to the Soviet Union.' There, because of his commission of war crimes in Crimea, Fedorenko, 79, was tried, found guilty and executed in 1987, a year after his deportation.
