Gardaí study CCTV after 17 kittens dumped in Co Donegal

Gardaí are studying CCTV footage in a bid to identify a man who dumped a box containing 17 kittens outside a butcher shop in Killybegs, Co Donegal in the early hours of Wednesday.

A local postwoman found the box during her delivery round. The kittens are between two and four weeks old and 10of them are suffering from serious eye infections.

The man who abandoned the box was recorded arriving on foot at about 5am by security cameras. The kittens were left in the rain and cold for hours.

The kittens are being care for by the Animals In Need organisation and the youngest ones will have to be bottle-fed. The group said the kittens were probably the offspring of four or five mothers.

“‘This is a heartless thing to do,” a spokeswoman for the group said. “All these kittens should still be being nursed by their mothers and to take them away and leave them out all night in the cold was very dangerous for the kittens. They are lucky to be alive.”

The person who left the box on the street is asked to contact Animals In Need or to have the mother cats neutered, which the group said there was financial support available for.

Animals In Need appealed for support to fund caring for the animals, which can be provided by texting ‘KITTEN’ to 50300 at a cost of €2.