It started with a hunch.
A lactating cat was found wandering a street in Surrey, British Columbia, clearly a mother who had given birth somewhere nearby. Concerned residents scooped her up and did something clever: they attached an Apple AirTag to her collar, hoping she'd lead them back to her kittens.
She did — eventually. And what followed was one of the most determined animal rescues of the year.
Ken and Lisa Friesen, veteran trappers with the Regional Animal Protection Society (RAPS) described as among the organisation's very best, were called in to handle the operation. The tracker showed the mother moving, but the kittens remained hidden. On the first night, the team followed her movements for over an hour without finding the babies.
"They could be anywhere from two days to two months old," Ken told CTV News. "We had no clue, and it was really essential that we find these babies."
Day two brought a breakthrough. The AirTag revealed a consistent destination: the rafters inside the roof of a shed, several blocks from where the mother cat had first been spotted. After getting permission to cut a hole in the roof, Ken peered inside.
Six kittens.
Manoeuvring a net through the cramped opening, Ken managed to retrieve one. The others were too frightened to approach. So he lowered a transfer cage into the makeshift kitten nursery and waited.
He waited in the dark. In the cold. In the rain and wind, lying flat on a wet roof with a flashlight, for hours.
"Believe me, I was freezing up there on that roof. There's no protection from the wind or the rain up there, and half the time I'm laying on the roof in the water with a flashlight," he said.
By the end of that night, three more kittens had been retrieved. The next day, same weather, same roof — and the final two were brought to safety.
All six kittens and their mother are now in the care of RAPS, recovering well and preparing for adoption.
This is the story of a lost mother, a clever tracker, and two humans who refused to give up until every last kitten was safe. 🐱
