Budapest’s black cats get Halloween protection

BUDAPEST - Agence France-Presse

Picture taken on February 19, 2013 shows a black cat walking along a fence in front of an orthodox cathedral in the Belarus village of Zapesochie, some 150 km southwest of Minsk. AFP Photo

For a Hungarian animal shelter, Halloween is less about pumpkins, witches and ghosts, but keeping black cats out of the hands of Satanists.

“Unfortunately cats here are prized by Satanists who want to use them in seances and sacrifical rituals around Halloween,” Kinga Schneider, head of the Noah’s Ark Foundation in Budapest, told AFP.

Schneider said the shelter always gets a spike of telephone enquiries in October asking if there were black cats available for adoption.

“We tell callers no cats are given out from the middle of October to the middle of November,” she said.        
“They never call back.”