Kittens plucked from trash, up for adoption
THEY WERE thrown out with the trash — but now they’re ready to become someone’s treasure.
Three plucky kittens heartlessly left to die in the garbage outside a Brooklyn housing project have been nursed back to health and are ready to be adopted, ASPCA officials said Wednesday.
A 911 caller alerted cops to the abandoned kittens at the Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay at 8:20 p.m. on April 18. The caller found four kittens trying to wriggle out of the tied trash bag atop a garbage pile on Avenue X near Batchelder St.
“Thank you to the caller for caring enough to say something,” NYPD Deputy Inspector Neteis Gilbert of Public Service Area 1 said in a tweet at the time.
The kittens were on the brink of death and less than a month old. One died shortly after they were found.
The three weak and dehydrated survivors — named Bert, Elmo and Oscar by rescuers — were taken to the Animal Recovery Center at the ASPCA Animal Hospital on the Upper East Side.
“At under four weeks of age, Bert, Elmo and Oscar required around-the-clock care,” said Gail Buchwald, senior vice president of the ASPCA Adoption Center. “Orphaned kittens need to be handfed every two to five hours, kept warm, hydrated and monitored very carefully.”
Workers had to bottle-feed the fragile felines for a full week before they were transferred to the agency’s kitten nursery, which prepared 1,600 cats for adoption last year.
Cops tried to determine who threw the kittens out, but the culprit has not been found.
“Tossing away four innocent kittens like garbage is an unthinkable act,” said Howard Lawrence, vice president of the ASPCA humane law enforcement department. “Given their young age, Bert, Elmo and Oscar were fortunate to have survived. Their future families can thank the good Samaritan who was kind enough to call the police when they saw animals at risk and the NYPD officers who quickly responded and brought them to safety.”
A family has already claimed Bert — the only kitty of the trio with a white tuft of hair under his chin — but Elmo and Oscar will be available for adoption this weekend at the ASPCA, 424 E. 92nd St. on the Upper East Side.
More information is available at www.aspca.org/adopt.