A North Park man believes he has solved the mystery of what happened to his beloved cat after security camera video appeared to show a hawk breaking through his patio screen and carrying the animal away.<\/p>\n
Andrew Vergohven said he returned home from work on Monday to find his 16-year-old cat, Slick, missing. After reviewing security camera footage, he believes a hawk struck the patio screen, grabbed the cat and flew away.<\/p>\n
Vergohven, a registered nurse at a local hospital, said Slick had been his companion through some of life’s most difficult moments, including the death of his partner.<\/p>\n
“I didn\u2019t expect him to live much longer, but I didn\u2019t expect him to die that way either,” Vergohven said.<\/p>\n
When Vergohven got home, he immediately noticed damage to the screen door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a hole in my screen — a slide screen, excuse me,” he clarified.<\/p>\n
Vergohven said Slick weighed about 6 pounds and had been sleeping on the floor near the patio screen door before the suspected attack.<\/p>\n
At normal speed, the security video appeared to show only a blur. But after slowing down the footage, Vergohven said he believes he could see the hawk strike before quickly carrying the cat away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just so surprised how fast he got him out of here,” he said.<\/p>\n
According to the video’s timestamp, Vergohven said the attack happened at 11:32 a.m., just before noon. He said he has seen hawks in the neighborhood before, including one perched in a palm tree across from his patio about six months ago.<\/p>\n
A published opinion from Cornell University indicates adult cats are generally too heavy for hawks and that it would be very unlikely for one to fly away with a full-grown cat.<\/p>\n
Nina Thompson with the San Diego Humane Society said the encounter would be unusual, but conflicts between wildlife and pets are not.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring hot days especially a lot of people are opening their doors and windows for ventilation. We do have to remember our pets may be able to get out, or vice versa — something may be able to get inside,” Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Vergohven searched the neighborhood in hopes that Slick had been dropped somewhere and also posted about the disappearance on the Nextdoor app.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen hawks in our trees all the time. I didn\u2019t really think I need to protect my cat because he is an indoor cat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While grieving the loss of Slick, Vergohven said he has been encouraged by the support of neighbors. He also has a warning for other pet owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it looks like the hawk is staying around a lot, he\u2019s stalking your cat, please keep the window shut,” he said.<\/p>\n
No other similar attacks have been reported. North Park neighbors told NBC San Diego they often see hawks hunting in a nearby canyon.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A North Park man believes he has solved the mystery of what happened to his beloved cat after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[983,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-419111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-north-park","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}