Alarm about poor babies

Seriously ill cats abandoned in front of municipal office

The three kittens were brought to Pfotenhilfe.

(Bild: PFOTENHILFE)

Recently, three kittens were found in a very poor condition at the Auerbach municipal office in Upper Austria and brought to the Pfotenhilfe animal welfare center. As the kittens are only a few weeks old, they cannot have gotten there by themselves and are therefore likely to have been abandoned. 

"We only discovered the full extent of the catastrophe during the intake examination", says Pfotenhilfe boss Johanna Stadler. "The three have severe eye and ear infections, severe snuffles, parasite infestation and diarrhea so severe that the fur on their hindquarters is sticky with feces and their anus is severely inflamed."

Punishable cruelty to animals
Pfotenhilfe is now providing the trio with extensive care, but is also asking for information from the public as to where the three kittens could have come from. This is because the perpetrator or perpetrators have broken several laws, namely both the obligation to neuter the mother cat under the Animal Welfare Act and the Criminal Code, where the abandonment of animals is considered cruelty to animals and is punishable by up to two years imprisonment. But the fact that these babies were so badly neglected over a long period of time and left untreated by a vet that they became so ill is also considered criminal cruelty to animals.

"Ice cold and heartless"
"Animals feel pain in a very similar way to us, which is why it must be clear to anyone with a heart and common sense that they must be cared for in such a way that they can live as pain-free and healthy a life as possible," says Stadler. "Diarrhea often comes from cow's milk, which cats can't tolerate. Anyone who then leaves them to fend for themselves without treatment and abandons them seriously ill must be given a deterrent penalty, otherwise nothing will change. Apart from the criminal liability, I simply cannot understand how people can manage to behave so coldly and heartlessly towards animals."