Cat lost 12 days after escaping harness - yet we found him!

Lost cat Poncho was lost when owners took him for a ride in his harness in the moutnains north of Berkley, California. They wanted to make him an “adventure cat” but he escaped when they parked the cat and lost far from home in a mountain wilderness.

As soon as they let Poncho out of the car at Grizzly Pass, he backed out of harness and ran down the slope. The owners quickly got a search party of friends and local rescues to come help.

They spent 10 days combing the hills: shaking treats, calling, and setting lots of baited traps, which drew in lots of hungry wildlife... including coyotes.

When the owners finally contacted us on Day 10 we told them to call off the search parties, get rid of the traps, and dispose of all the food.

All that bait had attracted multiple coyotes into the area, any of which could easily have caught and killed Poncho.

The typical posters, traps and search parties were not going to work.

This case needed specific advice factoring in terrain, weather and wildlife population.

 They followed our plan and Poncho was found – without treats, traps or food well away from the areas they had drawn coyotes.

This is the note I got on day 7:

"Please help us, Lost cat Finder!

"On Tuesday we took Poncho away for the first time to a California park near Berkeley. After we got out of the car, he freaked out, got out of his leash and fled down the slope. The next day we found but I didn’t know better at the time and grabbed him and forced him into the carrier. Unfortunately he got out the unzipped door back into the bushes."

 "fter that, we never saw him. We’ve left water, wet food in humane traps, put our dirty laundry there, but nothing had been touched so far. We have a team of volunteers go and search every day and some nights but no response. Now it’s almost a week since he was lost. "

The area has many coyotes although in the areas we covered, we have not seen any clumps of cat fur or bones yet."

"Please help us find our cat!

Alekandra

Once I got the coordinates for the area and a good feel for the personality of this poor displaced cat, I was able to create a plan for them, so they could focus on a strategy instead of making more mistakes or worse, giving up.

I told them to pull the many traps they had scattered around the area as they would only draw in other critters, but it was too late. The damage was done:

Lost cat survives coyote, bobcat, deer 12 days in the California wilderness.

Poor Poncho was miles from home and a much higher altituade that was used to and with other critters moving in the night, porbably very scared.

I studied the map to determine where he would most likley go, places he would most likley choose to hide by day, the direction of travel last seen and just in case, the direction of travel he might migrate along if he tired to get back to his home in Berkeley. Some lost displaced cats will stay put near the location lost (unless chased but some will start migrating toward home, so it's key to cover all angles rather than focus on one,

It took a lot of equipment for surveillance and "sitting shifts" from local volunteers who we had instructed to SIT in one place...NOT beat the bushes calling and searching and pushing him away. And then, right around midnight, the breakthrough: right as we were about to leave at a very faint and plaintive MEOW.

It was PONCHO! He was at the bottom of the top slope where the dense green was marked, rolling in the road near where he had been driving looking skinny and needing help. This brave soul grabbed him and did not let go. At last, Poncho was safe. Next, cat off to the vet, and human off to the hospital.

After 12 days lost in the wildernesss, Poncho is found and taken to the vet. here is the update!

"Hi Kim! He's doing great! He's already back to his normal Poncho self, but we are still working on getting him back to his normal weight.

He's been sleeping a lot these past few days, and he seems not to be as interested in playing with his toys before, but now he's getting better. I'm still amazed by how well he took care of himself during these 12 days he was in Tilden. We had a vet give him a checkup - no ticks, no fleas, just a little bit underweight.

We probably came out of this more beat up than he was! 

I'm so glad we got him in time - the heatwave and wildfires in California have gone wild. The sky is a sick yellow in Northern Cal right now. Thank God Poncho's home in time to escape all that and just rest and eat.

Thank you!!

Aleksandra