BROWARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Here’s a fact that is guaranteed to ruin your day: in May, more than 200 kittens had to be euthanized in Broward County’s animal shelter because they suffered from serious illnesses or simply didn’t have homes.
From April to October, literally thousands of kittens are born. Their mothers often leave them for a few hours to forage, leading people who find the kittens to assume they’ve been abandoned.
Katia Medina
“People really think they’re doing a good deed when they find a litter of kittens and bring them to the shelter,” Roz Harris, who is the founder of Friends of Broward County Animal Care and Adoption, explains. “But often, they get sick in the shelter because they’re not getting the antibodies from their mother’s milk.” A better alternative, she claims, is to leave food for the kittens and watch from a distance for a time to see if their mother returns.
Harris is behind the BFF Kitten Kountdown, which is a fundraiser for groups like HALO Rescue, the Freckles Freedom Fund, and Dr. Donna’s Pet Foundation, who are taking in some of the kittens. Those organizations use the money for food, cat litter, and kitten formula, as well as to spay and neuter all kittens brought to the county shelter. So far, Harris has raised a total of $2,715 of her $5,000 goal.
Katia Medina
Harris, who is now 52 and lives in West Palm Beach, is also hoping that people will foster kittens until they turn about eight weeks old and no longer need to be bottle fed every few hours — which the shelter simply doesn’t have the resources to do.
“I hate to say it, but if we have 15 kittens that need to be bottle fed, and there are no fosters available, we have no other choice but to euthanize them, because they will die,” Thomas Adair, the director of the Broward County Animal Shelter, explains.
The good news is that so far this year, a total of 759 kittens have been given to foster parents and 195 have actually been adopted. Another 523, however, have to be euthanized.
Katia Medina
Based on statistics from past years, the Broward County Animal Shelter may likely take in 1,750 kittens by October. So far, more than 30 kittens did find foster or permanent homes as a direct result of Harris’ campaign.
“I know that seems like a drop in the bucket,” she concludes. “But the alternative is to not do this, and let many of them not make it.”
