NOVA SCOTIA
Rescuers return with 37 feral kittens
The 37 feral felines from Little Bay Islands that arrived in Nova Scotia early Monday morning are no scaredy cats.
“True feral cats have little to no human contact and are fearful of us, but for feral cats, these ones are the quietest, kindest cats,” Sonya Higgins, owner of Healing Animal Scars in Cole Harbour, said in an interview Monday.
“It was joked amongst the caregivers that they must be just like Newfoundlanders: kind and gentle.”
Over the weekend, volunteer rescuers from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador scooped up 42 feral cats and kittens from the Newfoundland island, where residents voted to resettle by Dec. 31.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government initially planned to trap the stray cats and euthanize any if necessary, but the veterinarian quit after receiving heavy backlash on social media.
It was no walk in the park for the five women from Nova Scotia, who left Wednesday, to get to Little Bay Islands.
“One of the trappers described the drive as a “white-knuckle drive” that took seven hours to get from Halifax to North Sydney because it was white-out conditions,” said Higgins, who helped plan the Nova Scotians' trip to the island.
And it was no different for the Newfoundland crew on the way out.
“Our visibility was practically nil on the way out,” said Janice Higgins Alteen, who helped rescue the cats.
Higgins Alteen, part of Sunshine Kitty Rescue in Corner Brook, N.L., and Higgin's mom, said the cats were “relatively easy to catch.”
“We all went to work, set up the traps and had a vacant house set up there as a recovery centre.
It was really well put together,” Higgins Alteen said.
The 37 cats brought back to Nova Scotia are being sheltered in a secure, confidential location, Higgins said.
Higgins said from the reports she's been given, the cats are “in no worse condition than any outdoor cat.”
Some have an upper respiratory virus and one may need to have an eye removed, but “they've been very well cared for by the residents on the island,” she said.
A veterinarian was to examine the cats Monday night or Tuesday morning.
From there, the friendly cats will be placed with a foster home or with the Nova Scotia SPCA, and the less friendly felines will be placed in the barn program — where a cat is isolated, usually in a heated tack room, for two weeks, fed at least twice a day and then released.
“They'll go outside to explore, but they come back for supper,” Higgins said.
Higgins said she believes the rescue crews were successful in gathering all but two or three cats. Food and traps were left behind with Mike and Georgina Parsons — who decided to live off the grid on Little Bay Islands — if they find any cats the group may have missed.
Higgins said the cat-loving community has been instrumental as donations of large crates, food, litter, towels and other supplies have been piling in.
A GoFundMe fundraising page launched by the lead of the Little Bay Islands rescue mission, Linda Felix, president of Spay Day HRM Society, raised almost $20,000 in two days.
Spay Day HRM Society, a Halifax-based charity, will be paying for the veterinarian's bills, so “anything helps,” Higgins said.
“If there are people that would like to make donations of food and litter in the future, because they can't bring it directly to the centre, people can contact me,” Higgins said.
The adult cat and three kittens are to be transferred from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia as soon as possible.
A kitten, fittingly named Little Bae, is to stay in Newfoundland and Labrador and has already received multiple adoption inquiries.