View full sizeThis tiny kitten was found this morning in a Pennsville trash Dumpster.PENNSVILLE TWP. — Donna Crawford heard the sound of a kitten crying, but couldn't determine where it was coming from.
Then, as she searched for the source of the noise late this morning, she looked into the Dumpster.
It was empty except for a small white plastic bag, tied in a double knot. Something inside was moving, pushing at the sides of bag — and crying.
“When I saw the bag move, I said ‘Oh, my God, there is a kitten in it’,” Crawford said.
Unable to get to the bag inside because the trash container was so deep, she became frantic.
“I couldn’t reach down to get it ... it was deep. I yelled for help because I couldn’t reach it and knew it would suffocate in there,” said Crawford who regularly feeds a colony of feral cats that lives behind the Penns Terrace Apartments behind the Pennsville Shopping Center on North Broadway.
It was near the apartment complex, next to a burned out medical office, where the Dumpster sat.
The temperature was 93 degrees at 1 p.m. in Pennsville.
By chance she found a scrap metal pole nearby on the ground and slipped one end through the knots in a Walgreen's bag, fishing it from the Dumpster which also had a McDonald's sandwich wrapper in it.
“I tore the bag open and there was a little kitten in there, just one, among some paper towels and fast-food wrappers,” said Crawford.
She estimates the black and white kitten is about five days old. It’s eyes are still closed and its umbilical cord is still attached. It’s so young it’s hard to tell the kitten’s sex but it’s believed to be a male.
Crawford has notified Pennsville Animal Control.
The kitten has now been placed in the care of Maddie & Friends, a non-profit Quinton-based animal rescue and adoption organization. Around noon today, the organization's president, Robin Buoncuore, said the kitten had a healthy meal of kitten milk replacer from a syringe used to feed small animals.
It was just by chance that Crawford was at the right location at the right time to save the tiny kitten’s life today, she said. She had debated when she would go and feed the feral cats that live in the area where the kitten was found.
It’s believed that the Dumpster was emptied around 9:30 a.m. today. It was around 11 a.m. that Crawford made her discovery.
“Whether it was a puppy, cat or other animal, I can’t believe anybody would do it,” Crawford said. “If you don’t want the animal just take it to the pound or call animal control,” Crawford said.
Contact Bill Gallo Jr. at 856-935-1500 Ext. 432 or via email at bgallo@southjerseymedia.com.