A kindle of kittens rescued from a box behind a Langley dumpster have become online stars.
The six surviving kittens, Rio, Victoria, Aurora, Cano, Canyon, and Reef, have been featured on the LAPS website’s livestream since they settled into their new home.
Between coverage by the Langley Advance and their online viewership, the kittens now have a lot of fans, said Sean Baker, manager of the Patti Dale Animal Shelter.
“We’ve had some hits from all over the world,†said Baker.
The Langley Animal Protection Society, which runs the shelter, received the kittens after a Good Samaritan found a box, taped shut, behind a Langley City church on July 3. He noticed the box was moving and opened it. Three kittens hopped out and ran away before he could round them up. Of the seven he could corral, one dubbed Everest was too weak from the ordeal to survive.
The other six kittens are now thriving.
“They’re doing awesome,†said Baker. They have almost doubled in size, and all of them are very friendly.
That just highlights the strangeness of finding the kittens abandoned to die.
“These were someone’s pets for sure,†Baker said. “Someone handled them a lot.â€
Their fame has led to a lot of offers to adopt the kittens when they’re ready, said Baker.
“We’re not accepting any official applications at this time,†Baker said.
It will be a couple of weeks before the kittens are grown enough, and can be fixed. After that LAPS will look for good homes for them.
This is the height of “kitten season.†There are about 65 to 70 kittens either in the shelter or being fostered with LAPS volunteers.
It is fairly expensive to rescue and treat kittens, especially those abandoned without their mother, Baker said.
He and other staff crunched the numbers recently and estimated it costs LAPS about $1,300 per litter for medication, food, and spaying and neutering.
The rescued kittens can be seen on the Tiny Kittens livestream here: http://new.livestream.com/tinykittens/laps.