Eleven volunteers from an animal protection group were on patrol all night in Beijing's Yuyuantan Park this week, hoping to catch a cat-killer who has tortured dozens of wild cats to death in the past two months.

They didn't find the warped person behind the trail of destruction but they vowed they will be back.

"Ten volunteers responded to my post on our BBS and we rushed to the park late yesterday evening," a volunteer, who identified herself by her nickname Yaoyao, told China Daily's METRO yesterday.

"He couldn't kill the cats during the day, with so many visitors around, so the night is the dangerous time for the cats."

Yaoyao is from a cat protection volunteer group called Brave New World that was founded five years ago in the city.

She said the killer has butchered the cats in a very brutal way, with sticks and knives, and she wondered whether he was doing it to relieve pressure from his daily life and whether he would go on doing it if he is not caught.

"He will come again and we will spare no effort to catch him," she said.

One of the volunteers said the attempt to find the killer was well organized.

"The volunteers arrived at about midnight. Half of them waited at the back of the park's police station and half hid themselves near the east gate of the park, where most of the cats were killed," said the 50-year-old man, surnamed Wang.

Like many cat lovers, he has fed homeless cats in the park and was devastated to see so many bodies in recent weeks.

Wang and his wife have been visiting the park's cats for three years. Now, they also visit the growing number of impromptu tombs they have made among the vegetation.

"Huang Huang lost his brother just a few days ago," he said, pointing to one of the cats.

Wang's wife has named many of the cats and the couple took two home as pets.

"The cats are like my family. I want to adopt as many as possible but I am not able to do that," he said.

Another visitor, surnamed Liu, who also goes to the park each day to feed the cats, said she started to see dead cats near the police station after the second snow this winter.

"We can't bear to see the cats' bloody bodies. They were beaten to death with long sticks," she said, picking up a one-meter-long stick under a tree.

"We often find sticks beside the cats' body like this and just wonder who could be so cruel to kill such lovely animals."

Together with others who feed the homeless cats in the park, Liu has called the city's park management center many times.