Thousands of people have signed a petition against the eviction of the 17-year-old stray cat Anastasia from her home in Croatia. She spends her days in front of the 14th-century Rector’s Palace, a palace in the city of Dubrovnik.
Animal lovers tried finding her a home, but she always returned to the palace, so volunteers decided to put a cardboard box for her on the palace porch. But the city’s museum authority, based in the building, didn’t like the cardboard box and removed it.
So Srđan Kera, an animal lover, decided to make her a mini wooden home in the style of the Rector’s Palace, complete with a plaque bearing Anastasia’s name.
But Dubrovnik Museums also took away that home, arguing that no one can alter Dubrovnik’s “unique cultural and historical whole, especially by building shelters or homes”.
“It’s her home,” Kera said. “We’re only talking about one cat, not 70 of them.”
Taking away Anastasia’s home triggered a social media storm, and as of Saturday, 12,000 people had signed a petition demanding her home to be put back.
“It’s beautiful and blends in with the museum’s facade [Anastasia’s new home]. It has her name on it. Yesterday, the museum director took it away,” Caren Leong, who fed Anastasia a few times, said on Facebook.
“Help Anastasia and her humans reverse this unnecessary cruelty so that this little old lady can live out her life peacefully,” Leong said.
The Animal Reader is a small independent animal news platform based in the Netherlands. Sign up for our weekly newsletter.