On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Bergie and her owner were reunited, 32 days after the fire.
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, 32 days after the Eaton Fire, a cat that was lost during the fire has now been reunited with its owner. Lolita Lopez reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Feb. 24, 2025.
More than a month after the Eaton Fire in Altadena, a cat who was lost while evacuating has been reunited with her owner.
The owners were reunited with their beloved pet thanks to the work of two local cat rescuers and a call from a neighbor.
The two local trappers say they immediately went into action after the Eaton Fire, wanting to put their skills to good use and save all the cats they could.
And that work continues as they continue going to homes day and night and planning more reunions.
“I found her when she was four weeks old,” Ria Cousineau, owner of Bergie the cat, said.
On the night of the Eaton Fire last month, Bergie tested her own resilience.
“She snuck out and I spent probably 15 minutes looking all over the house,” Cousineau said. “I don’t know where she went to hide and it was getting closer and closer. And so I finally just had to leave. And so I left the dog door open, hoping that she’d find a way at least out of the house.”
Cousineau’s house, right below the now barren hillsides, was destroyed.
She says a couple of days later there was word of a similar looking cat at the Humane Society and she had hope.
“Bergie has this little tiny nick in her ear and that’s kind of her one thing that I was going to use. But the cat at the humane society, her ears were burned. But we kept visiting her,” Cousineau said.
She was hoping that was her cat, but it wasn’t.
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Weeks passed and then she received a text from her neighbor with a post of a missing cat that had been found.
“I have two cats and they’re chipped and so without asking, but I don’t mind the mails. I get emails every couple days, missing cat, and they give me the cross section of where they think it went missing,” Steve Schklair, who helped reunite Bergie with her owner, said.
“And then this random stray email shows up that says we found this cat and it looked like her, so I sent her the picture and she got so excited and it’s her cat and says, yes, it even has a nick and it’s here,” Schklair said.
“We already have the trapping skills and so we it was obvious to us that this is something we could do,” Amy Dresser, one of the local trappers, said.
Amy Dresser and Lexi Van Der Hoeven who volunteer with the group “Sante D’or” made the work of finding missing cats after the fire their personal mission, receiving donations from cat food to cameras.
“A good friend of ours, Jen Night with Del Gato Rescue, hooked us up with another rescue who’s out in the Palisades and they just basically overnighted us 13 cameras,” Van Der Hoeven said.
Cameras captured Bergie coming for food in the middle of the night on multiple occasions, all the while Amy and Lexi were tracking.
“The first night I just kept holding her and and cradling her and she just wanted to be comforted and I was like you have to be someone’s baby,” Dresser said.
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, Bergie and her owner were reunited, 32 days after the fire.
Cousineau said that when Bergie came home, she was excited to see her friends, especially Ruby, the dog she grew up with.
Now in a rented home in Pasadena with her partner and their pets, there’s a new normal for all.
“She used to be a very picky eater and she’s not anymore. She just eats whatever is given to her and she screams all the time, like feed me or touch me,” Cousineau said.
“I know it’s terrible to lose your home but I feel that they got out with all of their animals and that feels amazing to be part of you know to have their family complete,” Dresser said.
Dresser and Van Der Hoeven said they have trapped more than 20 cats in total and been part of five reunions like Cousineau and Bergie, with two more waiting to be reunited with their owners at the moment.
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