‘She just vanished’: Desperate search after dog goes missing on Spirit of Tasmania
Holly Alexander and her dog Ester. Photo: ABC/Holly Alexander
A desperate search is on for a dog missing after a voyage on the Spirit of Tasmania ferry.
Holly Alexander and her dog Ester were on the ferry on Monday, travelling from the island as part of Ms Alexander’s move to Queensland.
At midnight during the crossing, she was notified that her doberman rottweiler cross Ester, 2, had gone missing.
“I had put my dog in a kennel and checked it twice to make sure that the door was shut,” Ms Alexander explained in a post on social media.
“I was woken up at midnight to one of the security guards telling me that she had escaped and they had been trying to find her but had no luck,” she said.
“They would only let me look for an hour and I waited in the bar as they kept looking.”
Ms Alexander said the crew “couldn’t find her” and “didn’t raise any alarms when they were trying to get people to disembark or check their cars as they seemed to think that she might of jumped in the utes or trailers”.
The operator of the Spirit of Tasmania said it was “working with the owner”. Photo:ABC/Facebook/Spirit Of Tasmania
On Wednesday, Ms Alexander told ABC Hobart she walked around the cars parked in the ship’s hold calling out the dog’s name until early morning to no avail – and while she was doing so vehicle alarms were going off and she “doubted [Ester] could hear me”.
She said staff told her “hopefully when everyone starts their cars up, it will scare her enough to come out” – which did not eventuate.
Ms Alexander said her dog was “already frightened, that would only make it worse”.
She said a supervisor agreed to review CCTV footage of the ship’s hold, but that surveillance of the area where animals are kept was “limited”.
“I was there up until midday refusing to leave, as they said she just vanished … they checked their limited cameras that they had … [but] they don’t have cameras facing the kennels.”
Ms Alexander said she hopes someone has found Ester and she is in a pound somewhere.
“Not knowing if she’s dead or alive is killing me,” she said.
She said the last contact she had with TT-Line, the ferry operator, was at 4.00pm on Tuesday.
Holly Alexander said Ester is her “best friend”. Photo: ABC/Holly Alexander
In a statement to the ABC on Wednesday, TT-Line said “continuing to work with the owner of the dog”.
Ms Alexander said Ester was her “best friend”.
“I just want her back,” she said.
