WATCH: A shocking discovery in Langley is shining a harsh light on the problem of stray cats. Linda Aylesworth reports.
VANCOUVER – Five tiny kittens are lucky to be alive after they were found shivering and sitting in their own filth at the bottom of a garbage can in Langley.
A sanitation worker was collecting the garbage when he heard some tiny sounds.
“He heard meowing and opened up one of the garbage cans and there they were in the bottom of this can. Just soaked in their own urine and very cold and just terrified,” says Shelly Roche, owner of the world famous Tiny Kittens webcam. She is now taking care of the kittens.
READ MORE: B.C. kitten webcam a viral hit
The four have had a bath and been dewormed, but it will be weeks before they can be spayed and neutered and finally adopted out.
Sadly, for Roche, she tells this story far too often.
“Every year we get kittens that people throw away, or leave in a box in the park, or dump in the road,” she says. “It happens an astonishing amount, it’s hard every time.”
“It’s hard to imagine how someone could do that to another living creature.”
WATCH: Tiny kittens are cleaned up after they were found dumped into a garbage can in Langley
Roche says more than 80,000 kittens will be born this year in Langley alone, but statistics show about 75 per cent will die from starvation or disease if they are not rescued.
“It’s heartbreaking to think of the ones we don’t find,” she says.
The key is to spay and neuter your cats to help control the population. But if you are faced with kittens you don’t want, take them to your local animal shelter and they will take them in.
“We do our best to accommodate them,” says Roche. “We get overflow foster homes and we place as many as we can in foster care so they can get a home loving experience.”
“We get them spayed and neutered and ready to go and then we adopt them out.”
The Langley Animal Protection Society is offering another option for unwanted animals on March 7 with the Pregnant Cat and Kitten Roundup.
Photos by Linda Aylesworth:
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