Leah White is asking people to check sheds, outhouses and garages and make sure they aren't harbouring a feline or two.
Leah is desperately seeking Tippy and Whiskers, her two pet cats that have been missing for a week, but is concerned that they may be gone for good.
The same day they went missing, there were some traps set to catch feral cats in the same area, what if my two were caught?
Leah, who has lived at the Stratford Holiday Park for four years, says there has never been a problem with her having the pet cats and she wasn't told that the manager was planning to set traps.
Acting manager Yvonne Swinbank agrees she didn't inform residents that they were setting traps, "but they weren't set in a public place or anywhere near Leah's caravan". Yvonne called the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) for advice when they were having ongoing problems with stray cats at the park.
One resident's caravan awning was becoming the toilet for every cat in the area, we had to do something to stop the wild cats coming in.
Yvonne says TRC were "very helpful" and loaned her a "live capture cage trap" to use. She set it up in a private garden area of the holiday park "and very soon we caught the first of two cats". Yvonne caught two cats in total she says, "and neither of them were tame, nor were they Leah's, we know what Leah's cats look like and there is no way the ones we caught were either of her cats".
Leah says she has called the SPCA and asked if they rehome wild cats. "They say they do if you catch them and they are suitable for rehoming, but Yvonne never took them to the SPCA so I only have her word that they weren't my cats."
The captured cats were "humanely destroyed" says Yvonne, "my husband took them to a friends place who killed each one with a single shot".
A TRC spokesperson says the responsibility of destroying a feral cat is with the person who catches them, "in a way that causes the animal as little suffering as possible and complies with the Animal Welfare Act".
The spokesperson also confirms that feral cats are deemed a pest animal under Taranaki's pest management strategy.
Yvonne says since the two feral cats were caught, they have had no further problems with wild cats around the Holiday Park, but Leah says she doesn't believe only two cats were caught.
"Before the trap, there were six wild cats, since Yvonne set the trap, I have only seen one, and my cats haven't been seen since either."
While Yvonne and Leah can't agree on how many cats might have been caught or the correct way to deal with them once they were caught, they do agree on one thing.
"I hope Leah's cats come home soon," says Yvonne.
"I just want Whiskers and Tippy to be back where they belong, I am hoping they will still turn up but it isn't like them to be missing like this," Leah says.
