A beloved family cat was found dead with his head crushed in a feral cat trap, placed in a West Auckland suburb.
Mother of five Stevie Paton’s rescue cat, Tui, went missing on Saturday in Te Atatū and was found dead on Monday after a frantic community search.
Paton told the Herald that she had a bad feeling when Tui didn’t come home for dinner and decided to contact her neighbour on Monday morning to ask if they had seen Tui and her other cat Libby, who had been missing for three weeks.
“I asked if I could search the bushes in front of the house and asked if they thought he could be hidden anywhere in their backyard, like by a shed.”
Paton said when she went and searched she saw a tail peeking out of a bush and “I held my chest, I just thought OMG, that’s my baby.”
Assuming he might have been hit by a car, she went home to get a blanket to collect him, Paton said.
She looked further and realised his head was caught “in a trap, unlike anything I had ever seen before”.
“I felt like I was going to be sick, I just freaked out and couldn’t look.
“I couldn’t get him out of the trap, it was so strong, that I had to call my partner, we couldn’t do it so we had to leave Tui in the trap.”
Paton compared the tough spring used to one on a trampoline.
The trap that allegedly killed Tui is a Steve Allan Feral Cat Trap (SA2) the trap is designed to instantly kill feral cats.
The trap listing on MPI’s website states it is humane for feral cats but not possums, hedgehogs and rats.
“Kill traps are not recommended in areas where domestic cats are present”, a DoC trapping guide states.
In New Zealand, trap use is regulated by the Animal Welfare Act 1999. An individual or group could be prosecuted for using trapping or killing methods that do not comply with the act.
Alan Wilson, SPCA national inspectorate manager, said, “We can confirm that the SPCA has received a complaint in relation to this incident. We also confirm that a deceased cat has been taken into our possession, and our inquiries are ongoing. Therefore, we are unable to comment further.”
New Zealand Cat Foundation advocate Anne Batley-Burton says people who view cats as pests are getting their hands on these traps and using them illegally.
Batley-Burton says these traps are “specifically designed to kill cats and possums”.
Batley-Burton says the placement of the trap in Te Atatū was a safety risk and “any cat, small dog or child could be chopped”.
The trap had been removed by late on Tuesday but it is unclear who removed it.
Paton and her family adopted Tui and raised him from a 1-week-old kitten after his rescue from a litter that was run over by a lawnmower.
Paton said “obsessed is an understatement” when it comes to the love her family had for Tui, who was the runt of the rescue litter.
She says her five daughters are grappling with this tragedy and “nothing was as scary or as overwhelming as finding him in that trap”.
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