Meet ‘Nine Lives’, the Cat That Evaded Capture for 3 Years and Killed Dozens of Rare Birds

A feral cat nicknamed “Nine Lives” became a nightmare for conservationists in New Zealand after reportedly killing dozens of rare native birds and avoiding capture for three years.

The story began after conservationists from the Pest Free Purerua project released 20 captive-bred pāteke, also known as brown teals, onto New Zealand’s Purerua Peninsula.

Just one week later, one of the birds was found dead.

More deaths followed, and conservationists eventually identified the suspected predator as a grey tabby cat with distinctive markings.

Catching it, however, proved extremely difficult.

The cat appeared at different locations and at unpredictable times, sometimes disappearing for months before returning.

Its ability to repeatedly escape capture earned it the nickname “Nine Lives.”

In 2024, conservationists released another 20 pāteke into the wild. The cat reportedly killed 15 of them.

“It was a really stressful time. So we brought in more traps, gear, night cameras to try and get to the root cause of the problem,” Andy Mentor, project manager for Pest Free Purerua, told The Guardian.

“This particular cat would be very erratic. It would show up in a particular place and then not show up for another two or three months. It would show up in the dusk, midnight, early morning, through the day, so it was never a predictable pattern, which made it very, very difficult to track.”

Conservationists came close to catching Nine Lives several times, but the cat reportedly escaped into tall grass.

During the three years it roamed the Purerua Peninsula, the cat is believed to have killed dozens of brown teals, representing about 1% of the species’ total population.

It was also blamed for killing kiwi chicks, native geckos and other wildlife.

The breakthrough finally came when conservationists noticed the cat visiting the same location for three consecutive nights.

They placed cages and traps in the area and used salmon, fried chicken and rabbit as bait.

This time, Nine Lives was caught.

But what happened next sparked controversy.

Instead of keeping the cat alive in captivity, the trapping team humanely shot it.

The decision was welcomed by some conservationists but criticised by cat lovers who argued that the animal could have been kept permanently in captivity.

“Why was it necessary to kill a cat that was already safe in its cage?” one person asked on social media.

“Why wasn’t it given a chance to live out its life in a zoo or an enclosure? Thousands of people would have flocked to see this legendary cat!” someone else commented.

Conservationists have stressed the importance of protecting New Zealand’s vulnerable native wildlife from introduced predators such as feral cats.

Nine Lives’ stomach contents are expected to be examined to provide more information about what it had been eating.

Its body is also expected to be preserved through taxidermy, bringing an end to the story of a cat that became notorious among conservationists for its ability to survive years of attempts to capture it.