Heidi Siilakka from Haparanda was shocked to find her missing cat, Augusti, listed for sale on Facebook by a Finnish animal protection group. Mistaken for a stray, Augusti was captured and put up for adoption. Despite proving ownership, Heidi had to pay over 3,300 SEK to reclaim her pet. The incident highlights the challenges of cross-border pet ownership and the need for better animal registration systems.
Heidi's Shocking Discovery: Her Missing Cat for Sale on Facebook
Heidi's Shocking Discovery: Her Missing Cat for Sale on Facebook
At the end of July, the Siilakka family's ten-year-old male cat disappeared without a trace. A month later, it appeared in a Facebook ad. Heidi Siilakka, 46, had to pay over 3,300 SEK to reclaim her own pet. "It's so crazy," she says.
The Siilakka family lives in Haparanda, just 200 meters from the Finnish border, and it was in Finland that their cat Augusti ran into trouble.
Heidi Siilakka explains that she and other family members asked neighbors if they had seen him and posted a missing notice on Facebook. After a few weeks, they feared the worst:
"We have a large bird of prey in the area and thought he might have been taken by it or hit by a car. We thought he was dead. When I cycled to work, I looked in the ditches, but I saw no cat," says Heidi Siilakka, who first reported the incident to NSD.
For Sale on Facebook
One day, when Augusti had been gone for about a month, a colleague showed Heidi Siilakka an ad from a Finnish animal protection association on Facebook. A cat, called Jorma, was for sale.
"I asked my husband to call them immediately: 'Tell them they can't sell it, it's our cat!'" says Heidi Siilakka.
Augusti had been mistaken for a stray and captured in a trap near the family's home—but on Finnish soil. Finland has had a significant problem with stray cats for several years. Thousands of non-neutered wild cats are trapped each year.
"You can capture wild animals—I'm okay with that too, I don't want large cat populations spreading diseases—but in this case, it's a marked, neutered, and perfectly healthy domestic cat," says Heidi Siilakka.
She explains that the staff at the Finnish animal protection association told her they hadn't seen the ear marking, a tattoo, in Augusti's ear until after a few weeks.
"They then searched Finnish registers, but found nothing. But they should have checked Swedish registers too."
Critical of the Cost
To get her cat back, Heidi Siilakka had to submit documentation proving she was the owner and pay 300 euros for care costs. This was despite the cat being in poor condition when she retrieved him.
"It took him a week to recover. He was matted, dry, and emaciated."
Today, however, he is doing better, according to his owner. She thinks it's completely crazy that she had to pay over 3,000 SEK to reclaim her own cat.
Elina Kekäläinen, chair of the Finnish animal protection association that took in Augusti, told NSD that they followed Finnish law. Animals caught in traps must be taken to animal shelters. There, the animal stays for 15 days if the owner is not found via the most common registration services. If the owner is found and wants the animal back, they must pay for the care.
"Pets that are not retrieved are often rehomed with us, and we draw up a purchase contract for each animal. After that, we own the animal in question," Elina Kekäläinen tells the newspaper.
A so-called cat register, where all owners are required to register their cats, is likely to be introduced in Finland next year. The aim is to promote responsible ownership and reduce the number of stray cats in the country, according to the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.