Written by Paula Kingham
Professional photography by Keith Lotz Photography
The shocking story of how a man kidnapped two of his neighbour’s much-loved cats and dumped them over 40km away on open wasteland in the unsafe area of Atlantis Industrial, near Cape Town, horrified animal lovers everywhere. To date, only one of the cats has been found. This is her story…
The disappearances
On Monday morning the 11th of June 2018, at about 07h15, I returned home from my Pilates class to discover that my 18-month-old male tabby cat, Oberon, was missing.
By the end of the day, I was extremely concerned and started walking the streets calling for him and speaking to neighbours. It was not at all normal for him to disappear, so, the following day, I had posters printed and started handing them out to my neighbours.
Then, to my horror, two days later Oberon’s long-haired calico sister, Phoebe, also disappeared. At this point I smelt a rat…
I posted notices on the local community Facebook pages and carried on walking the streets, speaking to people and handing out posters. I also made a point of speaking to a man who lives two houses away – a man who is a known cat-hater.
The cat-hating neighbour
This neighbour has always hated cats; he considers it a terrible affront if any cat crosses his unfenced front garden or buries a poo in his flowerbed. In the six years since I moved into the area, I’ve made a point of checking in with him every few months for the sake of peace. I gave him a water pistol to fend off my, or any other, cats in a non-lethal way, and even offered at one point to have my gardener rake his beds once a fortnight to remove any buried poops. He turned me down.
None of this was ever good enough for him. He’d accept nothing other than that every single cat owner in the neighbourhood keep their cats confined to their properties 24 hours a day – a totally unnatural situation for a cat.
On this occasion, I asked if he’d seen my cats or knew where they might be. He claimed to know nothing. I had my suspicions but no proof, so I just carried on searching.
Then, on Saturday the 16th of June, I was put in touch with a lady from a nearby suburb who’d seen the Facebook post about my missing cats. She told me that she’s best friends with my cat-hating neighbour’s daughter; she’d divulged to her that her father had admitted that he’d trapped my two cats and, to make it worse, dumped them in Atlantis. I was gutted.
I immediately went to the Parow police station to make a case and then headed to the man’s house to confront him. He, of course, denied everything.
The search begins
With a fresh batch of posters in hand, a friend and I set off for Atlantis that afternoon to hand out posters in the centre of town; the next day I was back, this time with other neighbours, searching for my stolen cats. But the area is very large and we had no idea where to start.
On the Sunday, having already covered the Northern Suburbs, I emailed every vet and rescue organisation in the greater Atlantis area. Paulette Doo from The Kitten Cottage in Malmesbury messaged me, offering to help find Phoebe and Oberon. I was extremely grateful – by that stage I’d been hunting for them for a week and had had almost no sleep, worrying about them out there in the cold and rain.
Paulette went to reason with the man who’d taken and dumped my cats, explaining to him that the quicker we got the cats back, the better it would look for him. Within three days, he’d indicated the drop site as a bushy cul-de-sac in Atlantis Industrial.
No positive leads
The search then started in earnest. Paulette and I had a strategy meeting with Moyo Ndukwana, CEO of the Cape of Good Hope SPCA in Grassy Park. We held five mass searches with volunteers on foot and two with drones as well. But the area is vast, unsafe and often difficult to move through as there’s a lot of virgin bush.
Nonetheless, I travelled to Atlantis nearly every day, either alone or with one or two friends, to search more of the bush and to hand out more posters. I spoke on Atlantis FM Radio asking people to look out for my two fur babies. I couldn’t give up on them.
I went through terrible periods of exhaustion, sadness and depression as I struggled to keep motivating myself to keep on searching, despite having received no positive leads regarding the cats’ whereabouts. My friends were extremely supportive, and I couldn’t have gotten by without their encouragement and company.
A fuzzy picture of a cat
An incredible breakthrough happened on Sunday the 8th of July. I received a phone call from a gentleman named Admor Chibanda, who lives close to where my cats had been dumped. He sent a fuzzy picture of a calico cat that he’d taken from a distance.
I dropped everything and rushed through to Atlantis from a social occasion I’d been attending, in full make-up, jewellery and high heels… and without anything practical like a cat carrier or food with which to lure her.
I met up with Admor where he’d seen the cat. When I looked over, there, hiding in the bush and watching us from about 150 metres away, was a cat who looked a bit like Phoebe. At that distance, I couldn’t be sure it was her, but I crouched and called to the cat.
Frustratingly, every time I took a few steps closer to her, she turned and bounced off further into the bush. I called Paulette in despair and she drove through, bringing food.
It was Phoebe
When Paulette arrived, I’d lost sight of the cat altogether. After scouting around and calling for about an hour, we decided to set up a few feeding stations to encourage the cat to stay in the vicinity overnight and to return early the next morning.
As we were tramping through the bush back towards the road, Paulette spotted a cat quietly curled up inside the grounds of a nearby factory, tucked between a pillar and the fence, watching us. I knew immediately that it was Phoebe!
I crept up to the fence, crouched down, and softly called her name, hoping against hope that she’d come to me. But she stayed where she was.
Then Paulette started talking “cat” with an amazing sequence of purrs, chirrups and meows; Phoebe decided it was worth coming closer to check us out after answering a couple of our calls with chirps and meows of her own.
We were devastated
Next thing, Phoebe ran towards me, threw herself at my hand (which I’d poked through the fence), and proceeded to roll and rub herself up against my hand in delight. We coaxed her towards a hole in the fence and lured her through with food. Paulette scruffed her, scooped her up and we headed for the car, elated that soon she’d be safe at home.
But then disaster struck: a loud screech and clatter rang out as a man across the road dragged a heavy metal gate open to come and see what was going on.
The noise spooked Phoebe and she panicked, tearing Paulette’s hands to shreds in her determination to get away. Paulette just couldn’t hold on and Phoebe escaped, vanishing back into the bush.
We were utterly devastated. So close, yet so far. But now that we knew where she was, we were determined to catch her and planned to return early the next day.
Into my open arms
At 06h30 the next morning I arrived on the scene in the pitch darkness, a few minutes before Paulette turned up. I again went to the fence, crouched and softly called for Phoebe. She chirped back, and within a minute she’d squeezed her tiny furry body under the gate and rushed right into my open arms.
I swiftly put her into my cat carrier (I wasn’t going to take the chance of having her scared off a second time) and returned to my car with her to wait for Paulette.
Once safely in the car, I opened the cat carrier and then opened a sachet of wet cat food; Phoebe was so eager to get at it that she thrust her whole face into the packet and was immediately covered in the gooey, sticky food. But neither she nor I cared about manners at that point. She’d gulped down all the soft food, a bowl of water and a handful of cat pellets by the time Paulette arrived. We were so delighted that all the effort had paid off!
Finally we had one of my babies – and had renewed hope of finding her brother, Oberon, as well.
Safe and sound
I took Phoebe for a full vet check. They ascertained that she’d lost around a quarter of her bodyweight in the 27 days she’d been living out in the bush. She was covered in ticks but fortunately hadn’t contracted tick bite fever. Her blood smear revealed internal parasites as well as her external ones, and the vet indicated that she’d certainly sustained some damage to her liver from the starvation she’d experienced.
But, despite that, it was a delight to have Phoebe back safe and sound. Admor received his well-deserved cash reward for finding her, and Paulette and I shared a glass of bubbly before embarking on the next stage of the search.
With hope
Phoebe had been found just 700 metres from where she and Oberon were dumped on different days. We decided to set traps at the nearby factories in case Oberon was also in the area.
On speaking to the owner of the factory where Phoebe was found, we discovered that he’d seen two cats together in the preceding weeks but that none of the posters we’d left at his factory had made their way into his hands. Once he knew the story, he welcomed us to continue trapping on his premises.
Since then the weeks have ground on, and as of today, Wednesday 22nd of August, we’ve not managed to recover Oberon. We had a flare of hope when a worker reported spotting him on the of 18th of July, but since then we’ve had no confirmed sightings. However, we have seen new cat prints at the factory where we found Phoebe. A blanket from my bed, which carries my scent and that of Phoebe and my other two cats, has been placed in a room at the factory and shows signs of having been slept on. Moreover, there’s always the chance that he’s decided to make his way home on his own, so I’ve advised people in my area to carry on looking out for him.
So, we won’t give up hope. We’ll carry on trapping, and hunting, and calling in the bush in the hope that we will find Oberon. Keep your fingers crossed that we will find him.
Phoebe is stretched out on my bed, luxuriating in comfort, waiting for her brother to return and join her there.
There’s now a reward for R3500.00 for Oberon’s safe return, thanks to the generosity of four very kind animal lovers who raised my original reward from R1000.
https://www.facebook.com/Thekittencottage/videos/1642709775858060/?t=30
