One kitten is recovering in Parksville, after being found abandoned along with its three siblings, in Port Alberni last week.
The four were brought to the Port Alberni BC SPCA after their discovery and the SPCA brought them to Fantastic Beasts Veterinary Services in Parksville, who contacted Kathy Robinson with CatSpan because of her experience with bottle-feeding kittens.
“I could tell that one was very weak and two were very iffy,” Robinson said. “I bottle-fed them and bottle-fed them, but over the span of two or three days, those three got weaker and weaker and faded away. But the fourth one, he’s doing fine."
Robinson said the kittens were at most a day old when they came into her care. The surviving kitten is eating and defecating normally, and she is optimistic it will survive.
“He’s getting stronger by the minute, so hopefully he’ll be fine," she said.
A significant uptick in abandoned cats has been noted in recent years by CatSpan, a non-profit organization devoted to spaying, neutering, fostering and adopting feral and semi-feral cats.
But it's less common for kittens to be found dumped without a mother, Robsinson said.
The number of this kind of case varies a lot, she added, but is upwards of 12 in a year recently.
Approximatey a month ago, CatSpan was notified about five abandoned kittens — unfortunately the two-day old kittens had not been fed by their mother and none survived, according to Robinson.
Cats can reproduce surprisingly fast, she added. A woman in the PQB area called CatSpan approximately a year-and-a-half ago about two cats she starting feeding, which quickly turned into four mother cats and 17 kittens.
“And this was all from two cats that weren’t spayed,” Robinson said.
If the kitten she's currently bottle feeding does survive (which seems more and more likely by the day) it will be up for adoption, once it has been vaccinated and neutered.
The BC SPCA said if anyone has information pertaining to these abandoned kittens, they are encouraged to contact its Animal Helpline at 1-855-622-7722.
It is a criminal offence to abandon an animal, upon conviction the maximum penalty under the Criminal Code of Canada is imprisonment of up to two years or a $5,000 fine.
