A woman from Timaru has started a campaign on Facebook to discover what’s happening to the town’s cats.
As many as 50 cats have gone missing in mysterious circumstances over the past few months – with the incidences focused around the Timaru-Temuka area.
But it was only when Ashleigh Hicks’ cat Moses went missing last Thursday that she learned of the epidemic.
Since then, she has created an online campaign to help keep track of the issue – and urged residents to contact the police if they fear their cat may be a victim of foul play.
Ashleigh said that the stories she’s heard from fellow cat owners are strikingly similar to her own – the cats never coming home.
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Ashleigh’s Facebook group #freethefurbabies has garnered more than 200 members of concerned pet owners in the area, in the hope that the mystery of Timaru’s disappearing cats will be solved.
Timaru police Sergeant Antony Callon said people should contact them if they feared their animal had been stolen, and warned against taking matters into their own hands.