The Hamilton/Burlington SPCA, has an ongoing investigation into a rash of cat deaths, says Inspector Vivian LaFlamme.

On Wednesday, Shane Meador said his two-year-old son, Mylo, still asks about Mark, the stray cat he named when the family adopted him in June.

Mark was an outdoor cat, so it doesn't seem odd to Mylo when their pet isn't around.

"I don't think he really understands death," said Meador, 28.

Mark died about a month ago from what Meador says multiple vets agreed was poisoning.

He says he found the normally playful cat asleep in a chair on the porch one morning. When Meador realized how long Mark had been sleeping, he investigated. The cat was soaked with urine and so weak he could barely lift his head.

Within 24 hours, he had died.

Mark is one of roughly eight cats in the neighbourhood of Barton Street and Victoria Street North (Meador lives at King Street East and East Avenue) to have died in similar circumstances. Meador didn't find out about the others in his neighbourhood until he started seeing social media chatter about it this week.

Animal services said it picked up one dead cat in the area this week, but noted it showed no signs of poisoning.

Sherry Nath — who founded Queen Waldorf Fights Back (a website that catalogues animal abuse cases in Canada) — says she was shocked when she caught the evening news on CHCH and saw the report that multiple cats had died in the neighbourhood, but that no necropsies had been done.

"If there's a suspected animal killing, especially a serial animal killing, you would think that they would have done mandatory necropsies."

Meador is certain the cats are being poisoned. He said he initially thought Mark's death was accidental, but the number of new cases is troubling: "There's rat traps in the apartment building across from my house and at first I thought he ate a mouse that was poisoned. But I think cats are smarter than that. And they usually play with mice, they don't eat them."