Someone decided to answer a question that probably no one had even thought to ask: what if the best way to find a lost cat was to enlist the help of another cat? That is precisely the idea behind an initiative in Kazakhstan that is turning neighborhood cats—which already roam freely—into a sort of search party.

Some of these animals are fitted with small cameras and GPS trackers; they don't need to learn any special tasks, but simply go about their usual business—wandering the streets, entering yards, slipping under cars, and exploring bushes, alleys, and other spots where a human volunteer would likely never think to look.

As they do this, the cameras record the cats they cross paths with—and that is where artificial intelligence comes in. The collected images can be analyzed and compared against a database containing photos and information on missing animals; if a camera captures a lost pet, the AI ​​can do what the cat obviously cannot: recognize the animal it has just encountered and alert the owners.

It is a rather unlikely combination of animal behavior, cameras, GPS, and artificial intelligence used to solve a problem that has existed almost as long as we have kept pets. It may well be one of the few situations where letting your cat roam the neighborhood—without telling anyone where it has been—could actually help someone else find their own cat.