On the Île de Ré, cat owners and associations are warning about the disappearance of many felines in recent weeks. They fear kidnappings for trafficking or malicious acts.
A situation that worries both cat owners and associations. For several weeks, dozens of cats have been disappearing on the Île de Ré. A phenomenon that accelerated during the summer according to France 3, particularly in the towns of La Flotte and Bois-Plage. On Facebook, announcements from owners of lost felines are multiplying.
“Since April 2023, there have been at least twenty cats that have disappeared, both identified and unidentified,” Michèle Butot-Courtois, co-creator of the association Chats Boitais Libres, who herself lost her black cat, told France 3.
“I will not give up anything for the cats that are disappearing” she wrote this Sunday, September 1st on the Facebook group of the association originally created to limit the proliferation of cats in the commune of Bois-Plage-en-Ré.
For several days, Piérette has also lost her cat Miaou. Even by “combing every corner of the forest”, “there is no way to find him”, she explained to the local channel.
For her part, Danielle Le Floch, who opened a cat enclosure in La Flotte in 2018, explains that in just one day, two white cats disappeared.
“I looked everywhere, I would have found the body, white in the forest, I would have seen it!” she exclaimed to France 3.
Before adding: “They disappeared and every day, I receive notifications from people who have lost their cat but this really is a lot!”
“We have no leads”
Several hypotheses are then put forward. Michèle Butot-Courtois fears that animals, sought for their fur or for their breed for breeding purposes, are being “killed”. “I think that there are some who kill them,” she declared.
Piérette, who lost her cat, thinks it was a kidnapping to feed “a traffic that is taking place on the island”.
“There’s a lady at the beach next door, she lost three cats!” she said.
Another owner, Chloé, lost her cat Scarlet almost a week ago. “Knowing that she is a valuable cat, since she is a Maine Coon, at 1,000, 1,500 euros, for breeding, she could indeed have been stolen I think,” she told France Bleu.
Fears also expressed by the owner of the APAR shelter in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, Natacha Cantat, who has observed an increase in calls from owners in recent days. “There, I admit that I am a little overwhelmed, we don’t have any leads in fact. We know that they are in well-located neighborhoods, we have investigated, searched… So are these people who are harming them, there will always be some…”, she wondered to France 3.
The owners of the missing animals are invited to file a complaint with the police so that an investigation can be opened.
