MISSION & LONG-FORM INFORMATION
There are over a dozen cat groups on Facebook + Nextdoor app for O’ahu alone where cat owners post about their lost pets. This can get overwhelming and not an effective way for finders/owners to come across each other and share information unless users are both in all the groups.
Not to mention, this means both people will need to rely on Facebook’s algorithm to have both the person who found the pet and the person who lost the pet to come across each other’s post for this method to be effective.
Lastly, posts of lost cats are often buried and unless someone ‘bumps’ a post, it gets pushed down at the bottom of the group’s post and eventually is forgotten about. Thus, the challenge to finding lost cats and connecting them with their owners is a difficult feat. Of course, please continue to use all options to maximize your chances of finding your missing cat. I am just trying to offer another option.
Geolocats is 100% free to use and dedicated to helping cat owners be reunited with their lost pets
Simply press the + button on the top right to add a submission for a found or lost cat. After submission, I will review it and approve the submission to filter out spam. And it will appear on the map
The idea that posts will remain on the map until emails are received to request removal (if pet is found for instance) and doesn’t rely on joining groups or the luck of algorithms of someone bumping your post for visibility to help pet owners and someone coming across a pet that is lost to reunite them together again.
By allowing people to use proximity and the power of geolocation and map plotting, I believe it is a more effective approach to reuniting lost pets together. How effective it is—only time will tell. But this was the only way I knew how to help.
One caveat right now until I can figure out a better approach to anonymize users contact info is that users will be sharing their contact information on the page, which I see, may possibly lead to people crawling the contact info on my website for mailing list spam. I do not and will never collect or sell any information, but there are of course, bad people out there.
So the recommended route and workaround right now for users who are uncomfortable with sharing their information (rightfully so) is to
1) create an email alias, which is pretty simple or
2) create a throwaway email that you don’t mind spam or deleting once your cat is found and have emails from the throwaway forwarded to your primary account until your cat is found.