You’ll might hear them before you see them. But once you find them, you won’t be able to just leave them.

The sight of a motherless litter of kittens is near impossible to walk away from. But with springtime around the corner, you can expect to be seeing more kittens as the days get warmer and longer. 

As unsprayed cats all over the island begin to enter heat, cats will be looking for places to raise their kittens. Unused boxes, hard-to-reach tunnels, and any sort of sheltered crevice can become a home for a cat and her kittens.

However, the mother needs to go hunting for food. Leaving the kittens alone is always dangerous, but the mother has no choice. 

Kittens need to be fed every three hours, and like clockwork, a mother’s body will tell her to do so. If she doesn’t return after those three hours, then something could have happened to the mother.

That’s when you might enter the picture. Coming across a box of defenceless kittens, you might be tempted to do something to save them.

Here’s what you can do to help.

1. Determine if the kittens are really abandoned, or if the mother is merely out looking for food

2. Monitor the kittens for some time to see if the mother returns

3. While monitoring, keep your distance: if you are too close, the mother will not approach her kittens

4. If you cannot wait, evaluate whether the kittens are in immediate danger

5. If the kittens are in clear immediate danger, you should remove them and contact the authorities

6. If there is no immediate danger, give the mother a chance to return

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]