Nelson Weekly Locally Owned and Operated
wednesday 12 January 2022
They saved my life Nelson man Steve Taylor was pulled unconscious from the water at Tāhunanui Beach last week. He has no doubt that the people who pulled him from the water that day saved his life. Full story on Pg 3.
Not your average ‘cat lady’ Kate Russell Brenna Coleman is not your typical cat lady. While most cat lovers focus on those that are alive, the 24-yearold Nelson woman has dedicated the last five years to helping those who are not. “I have been driving around Nel-
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son, picking up cats that have been hit by cars and have passed away,” Brenna says. “Some have families that are looking for them, some are strays, but all deserve to be taken care of.” Since 2016, she has helped put to rest almost 400 cats in the region. “I try not to keep count, as there are so many. I had four cats in one
day once and that was hard, it almost broke me.” Brenna says it was an unplanned ‘pick-up’ that started her crusade. That was a random Facebook plea from a member of the public who had found a dead cat in a bush which looked like it had been there for several weeks. The post caught Brenna’s eye, sending her
on a mission to retrieve the cat and solve the mystery of who it belonged to. “It turned out to be an elderly woman who had owned the cat for 18 years - she had adopted her from the SPCA as a kitten. She was so grateful, so I knew I had to keep going.” Brenna says her search to find her
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own cat, Hunter, who went missing in 2016, also gives her the motivation to keep going. “I don’t want other people to go through what I’m going through. I want to give these cats a chance at getting home so the families can have closure.”
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