Edmonton cat runs into burning barn to save kittens

EDMONTON — “Their food was kept inside a barn, and the barn caught fire, and she ran into the barn to get her kittens who were getting something to eat.”

A mother cat’s stomach, paws and ears are covered in burns after a barn fire took the lives of all but one of her kittens, despite her best efforts to save her litter.

The mother and child were taken in by an Edmonton no-kill cat rescue, which, although over capacity as is, had to make an exception.

Furget Me Not Animal Rescue says this is the busiest kitten season they’ve seen.

“When there’s emergency situations like that, no matter how full we are, I always do my best and my fosters are so wonderful we kind of figure it out as we go, we just can’t let cats like that suffer,” said Christine Koltun with Furget Me Not.

The organization already has had success with other injured cats, like one Grampa Garth, the senior feral tomcat who would have been a likely candidate for euthanasia, now, a surrogate parent to many kittens, and an Instagram star. 

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Koltun believes the pandemic had an impact on the kitten boom, even with more adoptions, rescues have been hit hard.

“We’ve had to do more with less through the last 18 months, we’ve had more people surrendering pets they couldn’t afford to pay for, and now we’re seeing people who didn’t have their animals fixed because the subsidized spay-neuter programs weren’t up and running.”

Like many charities, it continued to see a marked decrease in donations but vet and food bills mounting.

While posting about the heroic mama cat on social media, they acknowledged the balance of asking for donations when many people are struggling financially.

“If you’re thinking about fostering for a rescue, now’s the time, if you’re thinking about adopting a pet, we know that it’s exciting, things are reopening and we can travel again, but the rescues really are full, and these animals keep coming in.”