When Kristen Meadows, animal care and welfare supervisor with the BC SPCA Williams Lake Branch, arrived at work Tuesday there was a box of little kittens outside, but no mom.
A note enclosed with the kittens suggested there had been a mom; however, it was raining overnight and Meadows says the mother cat must have jumped out and left.
Either that or Meadows scared it away when she drove up, she says.
“The kittens don’t even have their eyes open yet. They’ve only got to be five or six days old,” Meadows says. “One of our volunteers has taken them home to bottle feed them in the meantime until we can find the mom and hopefully reunite her with the kittens.”
It is day time and there are dogs barking at the shelter so Meadows is concerned the mom’s been scared off.
The sad thing, Meadows emphasizes, is there is ample room at the SPCA right now to host cats and prior to the kittens being dropped off, staff and volunteers received no phone calls about someone unable to care any further for their cats.
For them to dump them in the rain in an unclosed box was unfortunate.
“The kittens got soaked and the mom took off,” Meadows says.
There is a small group of people in the community willing to foster animals, but when kittens are very young they need hour-to-hour care.
“It’s really hard to find people that can commit. It’s basically like having a new born baby. Most of the time we have foster people that will take the foster kittens with the mom because that’s fairly easy, but sometimes when you get little orphans if people work they might not be able to do it.”
Meadows is hoping the kittens were not left overnight.
“They were there for at least a few hours,” she adds.
If people are having a hard time in their life or had to make a decision around giving away a pet, they need to call the SPCA, she says.
“This is what happens. Hopefully we can find mom and hopefully the babies will survive without her. We’re here to help and we’d rather them come to the shelter than be dumped outside.”
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact the shelter at 250-392-2179.