Catburglar? Shore pets go missing
Neighbouring felines, disappearing one by one, has owners suspecting foul play
I thought straight away something isn’t right. Shiloe Meadows
Acurious number of cats from a North Shore neighbourhood have been missing for weeks. Now community members are speculating there may be harmful motives behind the disappearances as cats are often going missing at the same time.
Shiloe Meadows and Jay Jay Carter, who live in Belmont, lost three of their cats, Sox, Zoey and Mittens, one by one, within days of each other.
Meadows said she noticed one less cat showing up when she called them for dinner each night.
“Through the next week Mittens didn’t turn up for dinner. [I] thought straight away something isn’t right,” she said.
Mittens went missing on the evening of July 3; their neighbour’s cat, Tama, disappeared the next night.
Johnny Friesen realised something was wrong when Tama did not return after going out for a final toilet trip at night.
“We have been doing this for a while but this night was different. My boy didn’t come home and I was calling out from 8.45pm until around midnight,” he said.
“I left the door open for him to come home and I haven’t closed it since, he is well loved by his ‘mama’, our girl dog, Kotiro,” he said.
An increasing number of locals have expressed their concerns on the Bayswater and Belmont Facebook community page with many puzzled by the disappearances.
A few more members came forward reporting other cat disappearances in nearby Hauraki and Sunnynook.
Adding to the mystery, Belmont local Lani Grace said she arrived home one night a few weeks ago, to a car parked on her driveway and a man holding a box while walking towards her cats.
“This was super weird because my driveway is quite long and wouldn’t be confused with any other house’s.
He quickly got into his car and backed up the drive and sped away when he saw me,” she said.
“I didn’t really know if he was after my cats, but this sounds like he might’ve been.”
Owners of missing cats have made reports to the SPCA; however, the charity said it could not comment as it does not handle missing pet investigations.
Local Danielle Aitchison wrote online that a police case file had been opened to gather more reports and information.
A police spokesperson said they were aware of the report and the activity on social media, but no offending had been identified at this stage.