I just wanted to thank everyone who’s sent me a message and left a comment on my last post. It really means so much to me and having supportive messages like that just helps in some way, I don’t even know how to describe it properly. Just thank you all ♥

Some people mentioned getting the authorities involved and I wanted to touch on that a little bit. A few years ago when one of our other cats went missing we called the police and the Scottish SPCA (Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and unfortunately they weren’t able to help much. Basically, they couldn’t get any proof of what the gamekeeper was doing so there wasn’t anything they could do, which is understandable. I don’t hold a grudge against them whatsoever. Though it is frustrating and upsetting that this is happening and we can’t do anything to stop it.

We decided to call them again and see if anything could be done this time. There most likely isn’t anything that can be done still, but just bringing it up again is bringing light to the issue again so it’s not for nothing. I went down to the shooting estate this morning with my mum to get pictures because I knew of at least 1 trap outside the bounds of the estate that I almost tripped over when looking for Joel the other day and my mum knew of another.

These snares are outside the bounds of the estate, just outside of the gate to get in. It’s literally a 3 minute walk from our home. Like I said, I almost tripped over the first/second photo because I went to go up to the small wooden bridge and didn’t see the snare.The final picture is a hidden trap that I could easily see Joel getting himself into on a rainy, cold evening, which it has been since he’s gone. That trap is inside the bounds of the estate.

Anyway, we’ve called the SPCA and sent pictures to them and they’re going to come by next week to do another investigation of the area. I’ve looked it up and it looks like those snares could be illegal but I’m not sure. Some of them could be legal and some are illegal so he might get away with it. But either way, I’m pretty sure they’re not allowed to be out of bounds of the shooting estate, which they definitely are.

Depending on how it goes with the investigation I’m thinking of going down to the gate and just plastering it with posters of Joel being missing. That way, that dickhead has to acknowledge what he’s done. If he rips them off without bothering to contact us, which he most likely will, I’ll just put more up until I get an answer. I’m not putting this to rest until I know what happened to my cat and our other cats before him. Just earlier this year, another of our cat’s went missing – Sylvanas. This time last year Panda went missing too and there’s a long history of many other cats before them.

I also thought of getting someone I know to go on a shoot with him and asking about if he has to deal with any cats and see what he says. There’s no way he’d ever admit it to us but I imagine he would brag about it to other shooting people, like he did in the local pub before.

That’s Sylvanas in the top photo and Panda with Joel as a kitten in the bottom photo.

I just find it almost impossible to believe that over 20 cats could have been attacked or eaten by a fox or run off somewhere and never come back. They always seem to go missing around the same time as well, June-August, which is shooting season. It can’t be a coincidence, it just can’t.