By Dominique Tassell
Several rescues and a prominent vet have come forward to allege that animals suffered in the care of a Southern Downs rescue.
Bella from Monto Bush Cat Rescue says she sent cats to Companion Cats Australia, run by Cheri Bate, because she thought she could trust her.
She became suspicious when she received no photos and rare updates on adoption.
Bella says in several cases, Cheri could not tell her what had happened to specific cats.
“She would say they are adopted and send me pictures of the wrong cat.”
Bella spoke of one cat named Mario, a kitten she was told was adopted but then saw “regular glimpses of in a small upright cage in (Cheri’s) bedroom”.
“At this stage I still do not know his location,” Bella says. “His last sighting was the 5th of May.”
When Bella had to move house earlier this year, she sent her cats to Cheri. Bella had sent cats to Cheri before but had not seen her home in Warwick nor the property she leased in Upper Freestone.
It was when she was dropping her cats off at the Warwick property that alarm bells went off.
“The moment I walked up to the door I could smell the stench,” Bell says. “It hit me as I walked in.”
“It was so overwhelming it was hard to breathe.”
While Bella says Cheri told her she had around 20 cats, Bella says she saw many more.
“I had to walk in a narrow path between the couch and a cage sized around 1.8m square containing at least two dozen cats.”
Bella says the cats were “extremely cramped, sitting on top of each other covered in filth”.
She says the cage was zip-tied shut, and the Bate’s had to use cutters to open it.
Bella recognised the first cat that she had sent to Cheri in the cage. She says he was sick, dirty, and had “shrunk considerably”.
“I felt so terrible for him,” she says.
Bella says he had been suffering for months, and it’s a miracle he survived.
Bella says she remembers thinking “I just have to go on with this now”.
“If I stop now I won’t be able to save all the other cats I sent.”
Bella says she regrets not packing her cats up and going, as the cats she had sent before were already mostly gone.
“As soon as I left I was immediately on the phone trying to find places for the cats to go.”
She says she made it clear to Cheri that she was working to get her cats back.
“Cheri insisted they were fine,” Bella says. “I have my doubts now that they were actually okay.”
Bella realised she had to remove her cats immediately when she received a call from someone who had seen the Bate’s property in Upper Freestone.
This person told Bella they had seen a dead cat in the enclosure as well as numerous other starving cats.
Reportedly, this person alerted the RSPCA to the poor conditions.
“I didn’t realise the severity of the situation until heard the words ‘dead cat’ and ‘starving’,” Bella says. “It was this moment I immediately decided I would take all of my cats back from Cheri including ones I had sent in the past.”
Bella says transport was already coming the next day, so she told Cheri she wanted the cats back.
“By 10 am the next morning, seven of my enclosure cats had apparently just escaped and only one was still in the pen.”
Cheri eventually returned three cats, which Bella says “smelt so bad the odour lingered in the transport van for days”.
“The smell was similar to a dead cow and I had to stop to spew on the way home,” Bella says.
All three cats had cat flu, and Bella says one cat had “terrible breathing and green mucus leaking from his nose, dirt all through his ears, and fur that was thoroughly soiled with urine and faeces”.
“There was old poop clinging to his fur.”
She says another cat was sneezing and matted.
The third was “breathing badly, had severe weight loss, and his ears were scabbed up”.
She says his ears bled during his first bath and it “took three baths for the smell to disappear”.
“He was only there a few weeks.”
Bella then organised to take back all her remaining cats from Companion Cats Australia on 22 May. Other rescues alerted to the conditions asked Becca from PAWS Brisbane to remove cats belonging to them on their behalf.
Bella says when they arrived they found one of her cats, Tabitha, deceased.
Another cat, Spider, “was the definition of skin and bones on death’s door in Cheri’s enclosure”.
“We tried so hard to save him at the Warwick vet clinic,” Bella says. “He was severely emaciated, severally dehydrated, extremely anaemic having hardly any blood in his veins.”
Spider passed away that night.
Bella says the enclosures at the Upper Freestone property were totally inadequate.
“Within the enclosures themselves there wasn’t anything warm for them and the food and water bowls were full of mud and dirt,” she says. “The floor was covered in poop and it smelt very badly.”
Pictures circulating online show these conditions. We chose not to include the most graphic images in this article.
Cheri has stated the photos are manipulated and the property was damaged in recent rains.
Bella says it’s “a bit ridiculous” that Cheri tried to blame the conditions on rain.
She says she’s not sure that Companion Cats Australia ever used the enclosure she provided them. The Bates claim it was not fit for use and that they spent money improving it.
When they went to the Bate’s Warwick property, Bella says the cats there were clearly sick.
She says Chris Bate lifted up the couch to see if any of her cats were under there.
“One of my cats was under there that I sent a few months ago,” she says.
“Her and her sister were supposed to be at a foster carer’s. I guess that was a lie.
“Her ears were gone and her fur was starting to pull away. She had been dead under the lounge chair for quite a while and they didn’t even notice.”
Bella says she regrets not taking the body. She has since found a video of this cat’s sister, looking incredibly thin and sick.
“She wasn’t among the saved cats so I imagine she died as well,” Bella says. “There must have been many bodies in that unit.”
Bella says Becca and another person arrived after this had happened.
Becca from PAWS Brisbane says she attended the Warwick and Upper Freestone properties in person on 22 May around midnight and was one of the people who removed cats from the premises.
She says she was alerted to concerns about Companion Cats Australia by a person who fostered cats for the rescue and by a person who had transported cats to one of the properties and had concerns about the conditions.
Becca says photos sent to rescues who gave cats to Companion Cats Australia were manipulated to hide the state of the properties.
Several rescues who had given cats to Companion Cats Australia were reportedly discussing the situation in a group chat on Facebook, which Becca from PAWS Brisbane was included in.
While PAWS Brisbane had never given cats to Companion Cats Australia, she went to collect the cats from the Warwick and Upper Freestone properties with permission from the rescues who had initially given them to Companion Cats Australia.
Becca says Cheri and Chris Bate were absolutely notified that people were coming to collect the cats belonging to other rescues.
She says Chris happily handed over the cats.
“He couldn’t do it quick enough,” she says. “He gave me two of his own carriers.”
Becca says there were around 37 cats removed from the Warwick property on 22 May, with more reportedly later transported elsewhere at Cheri’s expense.
Photos were taken of the state of the cats inside the Bate’s home in Warwick, and more were taken at the vets in Hillcrest.
Becca says two of the cats died overnight and more have been lost since.
A source stated that one of the rescues took in 11 kittens, and five of those have passed on due to being underweight and having feline herpes.
Becca also attended the Upper Freestone property and says only nine cats were left alive there.
While Cheri says the cats left on the rural property were feral and sick, Becca says they were “friendly” and she picked them up and petted them.
“I was able to handle each cat,” she says.
She says these cats were starved and many had cat flu. The ground was also covered in faeces, to the point where Becca says they “had to peel it off our shoes”.
Other sources have come forward to refute Cheri and Chris’ claims and attest to the state of the cats in their care.
They say cats went to Companion Cats Australia healthy and were found sick and starved.
Becca says the vet reports showed all cats and kittens had a body score condition of 3/9, with burnt feet from urine scalding across the board.
That didn’t happen in transport, she says.
Sources also back up claims that the cats on the Upper Freestone property were not feral, but approachable and “ready to pick up and cuddle”.
They state cats who the Bates claim were only there for 24 hours had cat flu, and kittens had tapeworms.
“For them to get that they’ve been living in really bad conditions,” one source says.
Cats also reportedly had coccidia, ringworm, and fleas.
One source says they found flea nests in some of the cats.
“There were 1000s and 1000s of fleas living on the cats,” they say.
Sources state that Cheri was meant to send vet paperwork through but has not done so.
Sources also claim that Warwick locals have contacted them online after seeing posts of cats they claim were taken from yards.
One source also says they know that the Freestone property never flooded as Cheri claimed, as it is up on a hill.
Cheri also posted on Facebook during the May flooding advising locals they could take refuge in the park near their Warwick residence.
Cheri has criticised those involved in the May incident for not going through the proper process, and while some sources involved state that the way the cats were removed was not ideal they do believe the cats needed to be taken out of that situation.
Cheri has claimed that the deceased cat multiple sources say is Spider was a sick and feral cat taken in from Mt Isa pound.
Spider was healthy when taken into Cheri’s care, they say.
Doctor Belinda Carey, from ARH Vets in Hillcrest, slept overnight in the veterinary clinic so she could tend to each animal as soon as possible
The cats came into her clinic at roughly 2 am.
In response to criticism that the cats should have been taken to a vet closer to the Companion Cats Australia locations, she says she was the closest vet who was available.
“Who else was going to open at that hour?”
She says she took in 37 cats originally from Companion Cats Australia.
Belinda says the RSPCA appeared not to be doing anything, so rescues sent people in to remove their cats.
It has taken around a month for the paperwork to be finished, and it has now been passed on to the RSPCA.
After scanning the chips in all 37 cats, Belinda found that around five were still privately owned.
She says the cats’ original owners “would be horrified if they found what happened to their cats”.
Around 10 were not chipped, and “virtually none” were desexed.
Two of the cats died at the clinic overnight, and Belinda says it’s “rubbish” that the drive caused their issues.
She says people aren’t stupid and will see that the state of the cats speaks for itself.
Belinda says the cats chipped have a history, which could be traced back to show exactly how long the cats were in Companion Cats Australia’s care.
Six of the cats remain at the clinic in ICU, but most are on the mend.
Belinda says the majority of the cats are now at Adopt Me Please, a small rescue in Bundaberg. Many are well enough to be adopted now.
Belinda says they spend around $6500 at the clinic helping the cats, which is frustrating because clean conditions and food would have made all the difference.
With those basic needs met, she says most of the cats would have been fine.
Around $1500 of that $6500 was funding through donations.
A Southern Downs Regional Council spokesperson stated that “following reports from concerned residents, Council was made aware of a property with an excess number of cats”.
“Council is currently working with the RSPCA and the property owner to reduce the number of animals to ensure compliance.”
They stated that Companion Cats Australia did not receive any cats from the Council pound.
