A RICHARDS Bay man had the surprise of his life when his ‘deceased’ cat suddenly reappeared at the family home on Monday night – days after it had undergone an autopsy.
Well known in local conservation circles, George Shacks, was distraught when the family cat went missing on Friday.
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It got worse when he got word that a dead cat had been found near to his Arboretum home on Saturday, and that neighbours had placed it in a plastic bag and thrown it down a storm water drain.
‘When I heard about it on Sunday I crawled two metres down the drainpipe to retrieve it.
‘I was convinced it was my cat and because I could not see any injuries to suggest it might have been run over, I took it to a vet.
‘The autopsy revealed it had been shot a number of times at close range with a pellet gun.’
The family accepted the loss of their beloved Tigger stoically, but George is not one to let things lie.
Since a resident had previously threatened to shoot the cat, he began investigating and gained access to indistinct CCTV night footage that showed the cat first standing on a wall then suddenly jumping high into the air, presumably as a result of it having been shot.
He reported the matter to both the police and the SPCA, but because there was no evidence to pinpoint a culprit, he thought the matter was over.
However, on Monday night when he returned from an anti-poaching patrol he saw a cat sitting next to his trailer.
‘I called my wife and we checked it out. Sure enough it was our Tigger, and as we compared the markings against photos of the dead one it was obvious that one must have been his father – every mark was identical.
‘Tigger is now under strict lockdown and although we have him back I am still not happy about the animal cruelty and will not let the matter rest until the culprit is caught.’
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