People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the national animal rights group, is offering up to a $5,000 award for information that can lead to the “arrest and conviction” of those allegedly responsible for shooting cats with air pellets in Missoula’s Lower Rattlesnake neighborhood.

PETA made this announcement alongside a new advertisement that depicts a would-be cat shooter. The ad encourages pet owners to keep cats inside.

Reports of cat shootings in the Rattlesnake began surfacing on local Facebook pages, Reddit and other social media sites at the beginning of the month. As the claim goes, at least two cats in the neighborhood were shot with Terminator .22 caliber air pellets, designed for hunting over medium ranges with “excellent expansion and high penetration,” according to manufacturer H&N.

Both cats required veterinary attention. Only one survived.

The Missoula Police Department told NBC Montana earlier this month that it was investigating the shootings. A spokesperson for the department did not return requests for comment and further information this week.

Meanwhile, posters are being put up around the Lower Rattlesnake offering a $500 reward.

The alleged shootings have sent shockwaves of panic into the confines of one of Missoula’s most cloistered neighborhoods. And — not to understate the trauma of losing a pet — they’ve also unleashed a torrent of violent animosity from neighbors toward their fellow humans.

“Someone is going to catch this … freak show and hopefully put a bullet in his eyes,” a commenter on the Missoula Lost Pets Facebook page wrote earlier this month.

Another week, another subdivision

The Missoula City Council on Monday evening approved a 10-unit subdivision off Curtis Street in the city’s River Road neighborhood, the latest in a series of projects the city has approved from developers who say their visions of a denser Missoula align with the city’s growth plan and can bring down housing prices.

The Carrera Commons subdivision would bring 10 homes to the roughly one-and-a-half acre plot. The city approved a preliminary plat application for the development on a 10-1 vote Monday evening.

The lot is currently vacant, according to an application from the developer’s representative, engineering firm IMEG Corp. The current owners purchased the land in 2023.

“This would be an infill project to achieve medium density, which hopefully aligns with existing Our Missoula Growth Policy, as it is proposed in a location where existing infrastructure is,” Tamara Ross, a representative with IMEG, told the council Monday night.

The development, she noted, also constitutes infill instead of sprawl. Some members of the council and representatives from the public have opposed previous developments — including a large, multi-stage project in the South Hills, which the city approved earlier this month — because they will occupy presently open space on the fringes of the city limits instead of filling in the gaps in existing neighborhoods.

Part of the development’s approval is contingent on a rezone petition that will allow greater density on the plot than on surrounding land by reducing the required minimum parcel size from 10,000 square feet to 5,400. The council also approved that request, and a number of other variance motions, on 10-1 votes.

Ward 6 councilmember Kristen Jordan was the only no-vote on each of these motions. Jordan, who also opposed the South Hills development earlier this month, suggested the council should not be taking the idea that more market-rate housing will necessarily improve housing affordability on faith.

She also took issue with what she called “spot zoning” — the process of applying a different zoning designation to a single property in an area instead of rezoning a whole area. This practice, while it might add marginal density in a neighborhood, is problematic, she said.

“As we see time and time again in Ward 6, developers are seeing maximum density,” she said. “They say they’re contributing to housing affordability by saturating the market with market value homes. These developments will not create affordable housing. They will only create rich developers.”

The ledger #️⃣

5.9%

The rate of growth in the University of Montana’s undergraduate admissions from 2023 to 2024. Graduate admissions increased by 0.8% and law admissions by 3.1% in the same period. It’s the largest annual increase in University of Montana undergraduate admissions since 2009.

The week ahead 🗓️

The Missoula City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee meets Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 9:00 a.m. The committee will consider a resolution that would require council approval of all expenditures by the Missoula Redevelopment Agency in excess of $50,000.