While most people are eating Thanksgiving dinner, volunteers are at work feeding orphaned kittens in New York City’s only high-volume neo-natal nursery run by the ASPCA. The nursery saves scores of kittens from being euthanized in city shelters.
In August, an orange and white kitten named Marcia became the 1,000th kitten saved this year alone, according to the ASPCA. Just weeks after her arrival, Marcia was ready to be spayed and placed up for adoption. The entire staff celebrated in an event at the ASPCA Adoption Center along with Marcia and her siblings, Mark, black and white, and Maeve, a calico.
The nursery was featured in an article by Elsa Butler and Andy Newman for The New York Times. It’s located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan where staff and volunteers feed the kittens warmed-up formula in tiny bottles and groom them with a toothbrush to simulate a mother cat’s rough tongue.
The nursery can handle up to 300 kittens at a time. Since it began operation in 2014, the nursery has raised 3,500 kittens, according to the New York Times, and kitten euthanasias are down by more than 20 percent at city shelters. Something to be thankful for today.
