Frankee Foster is somewhat of a local celebrity on Harthorn Avenue in Bangor where she lives. With her fluffy white coat, bright blue eyes and friendly disposition, she’s easily recognizable and will approach anyone.
“My Frankee is so joyous and loving — she’d walk up to the Boogeyman,” said Anne Foster, Frankee’s owner. “Frankee is one in a million. There’s a hole in my heart without her here.”
Frankee has been missing since Thursday, making her one of the 16 cats in Bangor’s Fairmount neighborhood that has disappeared, seemingly into thin air, in the past two months.
Aside from the heartbreak of beloved pets vanishing without a trace, residents are most frustrated by the lack of clues as to what may be happening. Some have looked to animal service officials for help, but were told there’s little they can do.
Experts are similarly baffled by the “unusually high” number of disappearances, but disagree on what they believe is causing the cats to go missing. Bangor’s animal control officer says local wildlife is likely to blame, but a state wildlife biologist argues that the spike in missing cats suggests a natural predator isn’t taking them.
While a cat going missing in a residential neighborhood isn’t unheard of, the unprecedented number of animals that have vanished in a small area in roughly two months has created an unsettling mystery for the people who live there. Members of the community are banding together as they hope their pets return, or that they at least get closure for the disappearances.
Jennifer Delano, who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, said she first noticed a few reports of missing cats in mid-June on the neighborhood’s Facebook page. Those posts prompted more residents to chime in, adding that their cats hadn’t come home either.
The trend led Delano, who has seven cats of her own, to make a map of where the missing animals live, which revealed more than a dozen lost felines between Webster Avenue and Hewey Street.
“It quickly went from six or seven cats to 12,” the self-proclaimed “crazy cat lady” said. “If it was one or two cats, it’d be a whole different conversation, or maybe there wouldn’t be a conversation at all. When it’s this many, it’s beyond the realm of normal.”
Now, the 2,200-member Facebook page dedicated to Bangor’s Fairmount neighborhood is filled with reports of cats who didn’t come home, and Delano updates her map with new disappearances. Some residents post photos of cats they see on the streets or in their backyards, asking if they’re among the missing.
Some neighbors blame the coyotes, fishers and foxes that live in the area for the disappearances, but Delano said no evidence of a wild animal killing a cat has been found.
Other theories range from cars hitting cats to someone abducting the felines.
The only evidence that has surfaced is a cat collar one owner found behind an abandoned building in the area, according to Trisha Bruen, Bangor’s animal control officer.
Matt Mason, who lives in the neighborhood, still hopes one of his cats, 3-year-old Eloise, will come home after she was last seen on July 24. The Maine coon cat would often go outside during the day and come back at night and when she got hungry, he said.
Though he fears Eloise encountered a coyote outside, he still finds himself hoping she’ll wander home and appear at his door without a scratch.
“We know cats can go on adventures and we thought maybe that was the case or she got stuck somewhere,” Mason said. “It never occurred to me that my outdoor cat would get murdered by a coyote in a city like Bangor.”
Bruen believes that local wildlife is the most likely cause of the disappearances, but said the number of missing cats is “unusually high” in a short period of time.
“At this point, a coyote is the assumption because it’s the only thing that makes sense, but it also doesn’t make sense,” Delano said. “There are a lot of cameras in the neighborhood and none of those have picked up anything and nobody has ever seen a coyote with anything.”
Some residents have called Bruen and game wardens, who told them there’s little the officials could do. There’s no proof wild animals are taking the felines and there’s no active threat to humans, Delano said.
Residents would need to hire an animal damage control agent, who specializes in resolving conflicts people have with animals in and around their homes, to trap and kill or relocate whatever creature they believe is killing the cats, Bruen said. However, both residents and Bruen said that method would be ineffective, especially when it’s unclear what species, if any, is responsible.
If a single sick or injured animal was going after cats, Bruen said laying a trap would solve the problem, but it’s unlikely that a rabid animal would be able to successfully hunt so many cats.
Bruen is certain the cats aren’t being hit by cars because the city’s public works officials notify her of any roadkill that could be someone’s pet.
Shevenell Webb, a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said it’s unlikely that a “natural predator” like a coyote, fisher or even owl that has been in the area for years is suddenly killing so many cats.
“This is an unusual spike that you wouldn’t see with a natural predator,” Webb said. “You’d also see some evidence because predation isn’t always clean.”
Instead, Webb believes the disappearances are the work of something or someone else, though she hesitated to speculate on what that could be. Instead, she advised cat owners to keep their pets inside and report any suspicious activity they see to law enforcement.
“Somebody knows something. Somebody has seen something,” Webb said.
Some cats could simply be mistakenly stuck in a neighbor’s garage while they’re away on vacation, Bruen said. Others may have been stolen.
“If you’re desperate for money and you see a big beautiful cat, you may be tempted to take it and sell it for $50,” Bruen said.
Another possibility is that this isn’t an abnormally high number of missing cats, but that residents on Facebook are only now recognizing the trend.
Webb and Bruen did agree, however, that the best way to keep cats safe is to bring them inside.
The lack of clues or answers leaves cat owners with no closure on what happened to their pets.
“Some people think it’s not a big deal or say, ‘It’s just a cat,’ but these are people’s loved ones that are going missing,” Mason said. “She’s my buddy — she hangs out with me at night and she’s there when I get home. My best friend may have gotten murdered.”
