Many newborn animals don’t stand a chance without their mothers in the wild, which is why one family from Thailand quickly rescued an abandoned kitten that was lying all alone in the street.
Once they scooped the newborn up, they realized it must have been born just a few hours earlier. And when they brought her inside the safety of their home, they looked closer at his coat, face, and paws and started to wonder if the animal they saved was a typical house cat.
To be safe they called rescuers from the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, who picked the baby up and realized the ‘house cat’ was actually a fishing cat, an extremely rare species that is going extinct. “We were rather suspicious as to why the kitten had been found without its mother,” WFFT said.
“Upon arrival we were surprised to find a tiny fishing cat kitten that was clearly only born a few hours ago.” But the family who found the kitten explained that they had helped raise the baby’s mother. “We were told that the mother of the fishing kitten was actually a released rescued animal, that they had found in a rice field next to the house while working a few years ago. They raised the cat into adulthood and then released it back to the wild.”
The mother felt safe around the family and had come to their property to give birth, and the rescuers believe she misplaced one of her babies while moving them to a safe spot. “While moving the kittens she had dropped this particular one in the road,” WFFT said.
The family and the rescuers waited to see if the mother would come back for her baby, but when she never returned, they brought the kitten, who they named Simba, to their hospital since he was very cold and needed milk. “The Fishing Cat faces a high risk of extinction throughout its range and is thought to be amongst the most vulnerable of the small and medium-sized cats in Southeast Asia,” WFFT said. “For now, he is under round the clock care from our vet team, spending his time in a special incubator that creates a perfect environment where his special needs can be met.”
Would you have been able to tell this wasn’t a typical cat? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and please SHARE this with friends on Facebook.
[Featured image: Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand]
Family Finds A Kitten In The Street, Then Realize It’s Not A Cat is an article from: LifeDaily