Megan Sorbara never knows what to expect when she opens a box at the shelter.
But these days, it’s more than likely to be something kitten-ish.
“It’s kitten season on steroids,” Sorbara, president of the Naples Cat Alliance, tells iHeartCats.
In fact, the Florida rescue is taking in so many kittens these days, they’re crammed to capacity — and even making a public plea for help caring for them all.
But no matter how full the shelter was, they couldn’t turn away the simple brown box a woman delivered to their door this week.
As soon as Sorbara saw the box, wrapped in tape with holes cut into the side, she had that old familiar feline — err, feeling.
More kittens.
“They were like popcorn, all five started popping out all at once,” she says.
And at the heart of that fluffy heap was the mother herself.
“The mom is sweet and just a young small thing herself,” Sorbara says.
The woman who dropped off the box said she had been trying to humanely trap palm rats, which are rodents that can reach epidemic proportions in some parts of Florida.
When the woman checked on the trap the next day, instead of rats she found a pair of kittens. Starving, they likely sniffed out the bait and triggered the pressure plate which closed the box.
It took another week to trap the rest of this family — five kittens, along with their mother.
“We are so full already, but the lady told me she had been turned away by the humane society and didn’t want to bring them to the open admission shelter,” Sorbara explains. “I didn’t want her to abandon them so we took them.”
“We brought them into the shelter and released the tape just enough and out popped the most gorgeous calico and white kitten,” she adds.
And then, one after the other — pop, pop, pop — the rest of the family burst from the box … and into the exact right hands.
The Naples Cat Alliance plans to care for this family until the babies are healthy and strong. Then, they will be looking for forever homes to call their own.
