Missing cat reunited with owners after 40km trek
A cat that went missing a month ago in the Cape Town suburb of Bellville turned up this week 45km away in St James.
Two-year-old Billie was reunited with his worried owners thanks to a microchip in his neck. It is still unclear whether he walked across the city during a cold and wet winter or whether he escaped from would-be catnappers.
The rescue cat with a thunderous purr was an unexpected visitor at a seaside residential complex, St James Terrace, where resident Marianne Lancefield heard an “ungodly meeowing” outside her front door.
“We opened the door and in bolts the spring chicken, waltzing around the house like he owns it,” Lancefield said, adding that the visitor resisted all attempts to keep him outside. “When we put him out he made his way around the entire complex, and then came in my back window.”
“Eventually we thought we can’t leave him out, because it was flooding outside, and he ended up sleeping on my pillow, purring away right next to me. My own big cat slept at the foot of the bed, hissing like mad.”
To help resolve the mystery, Lancefield posted an alert on social media and enlisted the help of a local vet, who discovered Billie’s microchip containing his owners’ contact details.
“We are so surprised we got him back,” said Billie’s thankful owner, Elsabé Viljoen. “If he wasn’t chipped we wouldn’t have seen him again. I’m just so glad that Marianne thought to take him to the vet.”
“He went missing on Sunday June 9, and we think he might have slipped out the gate when we were leaving.”
She said Billie had a forceful personality and could have run away if he was picked up in Bellville.
“I really don’t think he could have walked that far, though he had lost about a quarter of his body weight while away,” Viljoen said. “He was a bit dehydrated, and I think he has been through a rough time. He has definitely changed, the poor guy.”
Billie’s outing prompted much interest on social media, with commentators responding to Lancefield’s initial post.
Cats have been known to walk long distances if separated from their home territory. Twenty years ago the Sunday Times reported on a cat that walked across Johannesburg, from Vereeniging to Rosebank.
It’s also not the first time St James Terrace has welcomed a travelling cat. Five years ago a ginger tom rejected his new home 4km away in Muizenberg and repeatedly made the return journey.
Cats, like many animals, are believed to have the ability to navigate by attuning themselves to the Earth’s magnetic field, a little-understood process known as magnetoreception more commonly associated with migrating birds and fish.