By Daniel Keane

Copyright abc

A country council has apologised to a family whose “friendly” and “much-loved” pet cat was euthanased after it was mistaken for a feral cat, with the CEO describing the situation as one that “should never have happened”.

The Barunga West Council said the incident in regional South Australia had caused “great distress” to the owner and their family, who have been promised compensation.

The Bengal cat, called Patrick, was caught in early July amid a crackdown on feral cats in the Port Broughton area on South Australia’s Spencer Gulf.

According to the council, the pet was taken to a vet clinic and “scanned for a microchip, but no identification was detected” and the animal was then euthanased.

But Ms Wauchope said Patrick — a “beautiful-looking cat who was very friendly” — had in fact been both chipped and registered.

“The owners did everything right,” she said.

“Patrick went missing the night before [he was trapped] and the first thing the next morning the owner doorknocked all of his neighbours, they posted something on social media to alert the community that Patrick had gone missing, and they contacted the office of council straightaway.

Ms Wauchope said the incident occurred when she was on 10 months of leave for health reasons, but that she was immediately advised of the situation upon her return.

“I’m not sure how the mistake has happened, but it has happened and I can’t reverse that but all I can do is apologise on behalf of council and make sure that this never happens again,” she said.

The matter was raised at this month’s council meeting, where the council repeated a formal apology to the owner, saying it recognised “the distress this incident has caused”.

“Council accepts responsibility [and] has learned from this incident,” it said.

It said it had since changed its cat management policies, including by “reinstating council’s previous practice of seeking to rehome cats wherever possible” and “ceasing the outsourcing of compliance and cat management services”.

“[That] was a process that was put in place when I was on leave so we’ve now instead of outsourcing the responsibility for cat management, we’ve now brought it back within our council resources and we’re managing that ourselves,” Ms Wauchope said.

She said the council would provide about $4,000 in compensation, including for the cost of the animal.

“There was a very, very modest amount of $300 that was paid to the owners as a token for the distress that it has caused them,” she said.

“My understanding is the owners are donating that to a charity around pets.”