New Zealand Couple Accept Disappearance of Six Cats in Six Years
I don’t understand cat owners who accept, without question, the loss of six cats over six years. I don’t wish to be harsh but it is not good enough. A cat owner’s first duty is the safety of their cats.
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- Photos: ILLYA MCLELLAN/STUFF.
This couple, the De Boers, live in New Zealand where a significant proportion of the population appear to dislike feral cats and cats preying on wildlife. The anti-cat lobby of Australia appears to have rubbed off onto New Zealand citizens.
Knowing that and know that I had lost six cats in six years and knowing that I lived on a small farm with lots of outside space, I’d bloody well build a large cat enclosure where my cats could enjoy the outside safely. Why not? It makes sense.
Yet the de Boers who have a small farm smile for the camera when one of their cats, Jemima, drags herself back home after being lost for ten days because she had been shot and had a broken leg.
The website stuff.co.nz reports on a female cat, Jemima, who dragged herself home over ten days. Jemima was already a rescue cat adopted from the SPCA. She vanished in late December 2017. After she disappeared the de Boers believed that they’d never see her again. That must have been a natural consequence of losing six cats previously.
On her arrival home Jemima was taken to the vets where and x-ray showed a bullet wound had destroyed the nerves in her shoulder and chipped her sternum.
Penelope de Boer said that she hates to think how their other missing cats might have died. Yes, I agree. More reason to build a large outside enclosure asap.
The vet said she thought that Jemima had been shot while she was sitting and looking at the person who shot her. Charming. You see what I mean about cat haters and shooters.
It does not take much imagination to believe that the six disappearing cats have been shot as well. That fear would change my attitude about free-roaming cats. And I would not have waited until six had disappeared.