When a family from Powassan, Ontario, went home Wednesday morning to find three kittens abandoned in their mailbox, they were “devastated.”
“When my father returned home, the mailman walked down the driveway and questioned if my father resided at this location,” Leslie Armitage explained.
“He stated the mailbox had kittens in it.” My father couldn’t believe what he was hearing.”
“I was heartbroken. “I’ve always loved animals, and I felt shame for the folks who would put these little, little young kittens in a cold tin mailbox and just leave, just abandon them,” Leslie Armitage says.
Armitage recounted that when her father opened the tin mailbox, he discovered three four-week-old kittens.
“One of them died, while the other did not survive.” “The third one was vibrant,” Armitage observed.
According to Armitage, the kittens were just left on an absorbent pad with no food or note.
“I’m guessing the person thought to themselves, ‘These people adore animals, let’s just dump them here.’ “However, it is quite inhumane,” she continued. “I’m not sure if they stayed overnight.”
Armitage stated that she reported the incident to the Ontario Provincial Police.
“The constable who arrived was devastated when she saw the size of the kitten,” she explained.
“She took down all the information she could, but there wasn’t much they could do without a camera that could have caught someone.”
It’s all too frequent to abandon kittens.
According to Powassan animal control officer Sandy Briggs, dumping kittens isn’t unusual in this area.
Briggs explained, “They get dropped in front of the vet clinic, in front of the humane organization, and we’ve had cats thrown here.”
Briggs went on to add that her animal control office lacks the necessary facilities to accept cats and that there is no local cat bylaw or licensing.
“There are a number of facilities that will take animals, but they usually get started and are overrun with cats and kittens within a couple of weeks,” she explained.
What frequently happens, according to Briggs, is that someone will get a cat, decide not to spay or neuter it, and then end up with a litter of kittens they can’t care for.
