Gironde wildfire animal rescue: cat missing for 17 years returned to owner

A cat missing since 2009 has been reunited with its owner after being found during animal rescue operations linked to the Gironde wildfires. 

Among the devastation the summer fires in Gironde brought, a cat, Mozart, was found having disappeared 17 years ago from Bordeaux. Over the years, his owner had not expected to find him again. However, on July 25, she received a phone call from animal rescue volunteers - the cat’s microchip revealed his identity and led rescuers back to his original owner, Elisabeth-Sophie Stevens, who now lives near Dijon.

“When we called her, we told her: ‘We have found your cat,’” Véronique Laveissière, vice-president of the Association Mérignac Chats Errants (a cat association), told The Connexion. “She replied: ‘My cat is sitting next to me on the sofa. What are you talking about?’”

However, the cat sitting next to her was her current cat Gandhi, not Mozart. “We told her: ‘We have a cat called Mozart, and he belongs to you.’ She said: ‘Oh my God, Mozart! But that was years and years ago.’” 

Although Mozart’s return was a joyful moment, rescuers were left with many questions about what happened during the 17 years he was missing. 

“This is the question I immediately asked myself: what did this cat do all that time?” Ms Laveissière said. “Because Mozart does not look like a feral cat.”

“If he had really been a feral cat, he probably would not still be with us,” she said. “They do not live very long.”

The most likely explanation is that Mozart was cared for by another household for many years.

“We think someone must have fed him, and at some point he was probably taken in by another family,” Ms Laveissière said. “There was no sign of deliberate wrongdoing. Someone likely thought he was a lost or abandoned cat and gave him a home.”

A friend of Ms Stevens collected Mozart from Gironde and brought him back to the Dijon area.

For Ms Laveissière, Mozart’s story is an example of why identification is so important.  Without identification, many owners never discover what happened to a missing pet.

“That is why electronic identification is so important,” she said. “It is the hope that, one day, you can find out what became of your animal.”

Rescue operation launched during chaos

Around 100 animals were taken into care during the rescue effort, according to the association.

“When we saw the fire moving from one area to another, it was like an apocalypse,” Ms Laveissière said. “There were burned forests, destroyed houses, car wrecks. It was like a landscape after a war.”

The fires destroyed homes and forced thousands of people to flee. Emergency services focused first on saving human lives, but animal welfare groups quickly mobilised.

“The firefighters, the prefecture and the local authorities had to focus on evacuating people,” she said. “But many animals were still there, and we had to act.”

The association provided transport cages, trapping cages, food and temporary shelter. Volunteers searched for abandoned animals and worked with firefighters who brought in animals found near the flames.

Mozart was one of many animals rescued. “He is one among many others,” Ms Laveissière said. “We recovered cats, dogs, rabbits, even a parrot. Everything we could save, everything that was in danger.”

Now, as the association is struggling with the numbers of animals rescued during the fire, it is also making a call for donations. Anyone wanting to help can do so using this link.