A Perth woman is devastated after her cat was hit and killed by a car, only for the local council to dispose of him in landfill before she had found out what had happened.
Bicton resident Siobhan Taylor said she had let her pet, Bailey, outside. But when she tried to call him back he did not come.
Siobhan Taylor's beloved pet Bailey.Credit:Siobhan Taylor
"I knew instantly that something was wrong," she said.
"I was up until 4:30am looking for him and calling."
Ms Taylor plastered Bailey's image across a number of social media lost pet pages, and searched the local area with the assistance of friends and family.
She came up empty-handed until she received a message from a woman who believed she had found Bailey on the side of Preston Point Road.
"The lady got in touch with me and sent me the photo she had taken confirming it was my boy," Ms Taylor said.
"Never in my life have I felt how I did at that moment; he was like a child to me and seeing him dead broke my heart. He didn't have any injuries that I could see, and his face still looked peaceful and beautiful."
Ms Taylor was told the ranger had been called, and was coming to collect Bailey's body. Ms Taylor called the ranger, but found the attending council officer had gone home for the day. His replacement said there was no cat matching Bailey's description being held at the ranger station.
"For the next three days I put up posters and pleaded with the public on Facebook to give him back, or at least tell me they buried him," she said.
After calling around to different councils in a desperate attempt to locate the body of her pet, Ms Taylor found out a "horrifying" fact.
A number of councils opt to call waste disposal services when a ranger is not available, and it was highly likely Bailey's body had been picked up and put in the local council land fill system instead of being returned to his owner.
She called the City of Melville, and found that was exactly where her beloved Bailey had ended up.
"I was absolutely horrified," she said.
"If I had not contacted them, I would never, ever have known what happened to him. I now know that my beautiful, sweet boy was compacted into landfill with the trash before I even knew he was dead."
After posting about her experience to social media, the City of Melville contacted Ms Taylor to let her know the policy regarding deceased animal disposal had been changed.
The new policy will mean a ranger will attempt to identify the animal and contact the owner.
"As deceased animals can form a bio-hazard, at their discretion and according to the condition of the animal, the ranger will decide if the body of the animal can be returned to the owner," the council informed her.
Ms Taylor said it was too little, too late, and she was still in shock Bailey had gone unidentified despite having tags with his address and name around his neck at the time of the accident.