(WXYZ) — Three kittens, about three months old, are now being nursed back to health after they were left on the side of the St. Clair County Animal Control building in a plastic tote on Sunday night.
Watch Carli Petrus's video report:
The director says this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and it definitely won't be the last.
The kittens were left in the heat and rain for hours before they were found by a community service worker the next morning.
"At that point, the temperature inside the tote had gotten to be 103 degrees. They had urinated on themselves, which created extra humidity, and the air holes were very small," said St. Clair County Animal Control Director Melissa Miller.
Miller says a man was caught on their security cameras dropping off the bin of kittens before driving off in a red truck.
She believes more cats may be in danger of abandonment.
"That investigation is still ongoing. Ultimately, what we would like to do is hear from that person. We want to be able to help people when there is a situation like this and to better understand what happened," said Miller.
It's a sad situation, but not a new one for St. Clair County Animal Control.
In fact, it's not even the first case this month.
"Just 17 days ago, a cat was left in one of our storage containers in a crate, and the storage container was shut. Unfortunately, it's a storage container that we don't go into very frequently, and when we went on Wednesday to go put together some crates for transport, we found Oberon, which is what we named him, we found Oberon in that storage container," said Miller.
The three-year-old cat survived three days without food, water, or appropriate shelter. Now he's recovering and will be up for adoption at an event happening this weekend.
Miller says they're seeing a noticeable increase in pet abandonment — especially in recent months — and it's part of a larger national trend.
She believes it's for a few reasons.
"During COVID, over 2 million spays and neuters did not occur as that crisis happened, and veterinarians had to make sure that the human hospitals had the PPE that they needed, so all non-essential surgeries were stopped in the majority of states. The second is that people are having a very difficult time with finding affordable housing, especially affordable housing that permits pets," she said.
She's urging people to stop abandoning animals and instead to reach out for help.
"We want to make sure we're creating safe and humane communities, and the way we do that is by communicating with each other, and the best way that we can do that is reach out to us," said Miller.
