On the one-year anniversary of Franco’s disappearance, McCalman posted on a Hamurana Facebook page “on the off-chance” someone had seen him.
“You often hear that cats don’t wander far.”
Lynda McCalman said she had owned Franco for six years before he went missing in June 2024. Photo / Lynda McCalman
McCalman was contacted by Shelley Costello, who lived about 1.5km away from her partner’s old property.
Costello had seen McCalman’s Facebook post with the photo of Franco and believed he was the cat she and her husband Tony had spotted every now and then for the past few months.
McCalman visited Costello to see if it was Franco.
“I went over there about three times and each time he didn’t come out at all.”
Costello told the Bay of Plenty Times she had seen Franco at the neighbour’s property eating food for their chickens.
“When I called, he looked up at me,” she said.
She contacted McCalman again. McCalman went but Franco had gone by the time she arrived.