An East Vancouver teen is raising concerns about a cat trapped in the roof of a local elementary school.
Bailey Mehan first heard meowing on Saturday night, while hanging out with friends behind Burnaby's Gilmore Elementary.
"If you called to it, it meowed back," said the 16-year-old Burnaby student. "It would start moaning then meowing quietly. ... I kept calling to it, but it started getting stressed, so I stopped calling it because I thought it was getting more stressed."
The school is undergoing construction for seismic upgrades, and the cat appears to be trapped in the roof somewhere.
Bailey called the fire department Saturday night but was told they couldn't do anything. Bailey's friend had also heard the meowing on Friday night, so the cat had likely been in the roof all weekend, at least. By Sunday, the meows were getting weaker, and Bailey summoned the SPCA.
The SPCA employee showed up within 15 minutes of the call and climbed over the construction fence with Bailey. They both scaled the scaffolding up the side of the school, listening for the meowing.
Since it was a Sunday, the construction site was vacated, but one on-duty worker took the woman from the SPCA onto the roof in search of the feline, and they pinpointed the meows to a corner of metal cornice, according to Bailey.
Bailey said she was told that the construction boss was on the Island for the weekend, and the man on duty couldn't open the roof without permission, as it would likely cost more money to patch it back up.
On Monday morning, the NOW was onsite at the school, but there were no sounds, apart from the construction noise. The cat situation was news to principal Sheilagh Pace, who asked the construction site supervisor to go take a look.
"It's been up there a couple of days so far," Bailey said. "I want to see them at least try to cut it out. Dead or alive, it's going to smell anyways."
Bailey's mom, Kathy, was also at the school on Monday morning.
"Lots of kids in the neighbourhood have been hearing this cat all weekend," she said.
Burnaby SPCA manager Ryan Voutilainen said an animal control officer was onsite Monday, after the NOW had left, and that the cat was still meowing. The construction workers were setting up more scaffolding to get higher up the building.
"We are doing everything we can to try and rescue this cat," he said. "The cat is still meowing, so that's a good sign."
A cat can survive for up to roughly seven days without food or water, depending on temperature, according to Voutilainen.
