After her monthlong trip from China, a calico cat is underweight and dehydrated - but living.
By JANET ZINK
Published April 15, 2004
[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke]
This calico cat found its way to Tampa aboard a crate shipped from China a month ago.
TAMPA - The story of the kitty that traveled more than a month from China to Tampa trapped in a metal shipping container filled with parrot cages sounds too strange to be true.
But Norman Goldberg, owner of Quality Discount Cages, said he discovered the cat Friday when he received a shipment at his warehouse on Busch Boulevard.
"I opened it up, and out jumped the cat," he said.
The calico apparently began her journey at a factory in China where workers started loading the parrot cages into a 40-foot metal container March 4, Goldberg said. It was sent by boat to Los Angeles on April 1 and then by rail to Tampa.
Goldberg said he received the container at 7:30 a.m. Friday.
Several cardboard boxes holding cages had been chewed up.
Goldberg called Hillsborough County Animal Services to retrieve the animal from his warehouse rather than keep it.
"I'm not a cat person," he said. "I've got two dogs and four parrots."
Clarence Dunning, a veterinarian at Care Animal Hospital in Brandon, said he was skeptical about a cat's ability to survive such a journey. A cat can survive without food for 30 days, he said, but not water.
"I'm assuming she had some water," said Nil Wilkins, an Animal Services veterinarian. "Unfortunately, we can't ask her what happened."
Staff members at Animal Services warmed to the worldly feline. They named her China and are nursing her back to health before putting her up for adoption.
Wilkins said given China's age, she should weigh about 6 pounds, but she tips the scale at just over 3 pounds.
"She's not out of the woods yet," Wilkins said. "Once they lose half their body weight, they're treading on dangerously thin ground."
The cat has, however, started to groom herself, which is a good sign, Wilkins said.
China needs to be tested for common diseases, including feline immunodeficiency virus and feline leukemia, but Wilkins said the cat is too dehydrated for blood tests.
Meanwhile, Goldberg's brother-in-law and business partner, Martin Howley, said he has been in touch with the employees at the factory in China that packed the crate.
"We are very happy to know our cat still alive," wrote Ms. Ivy of Dayang Co. in China. "Is it a yellow or grey one? Because we have two cats, but they disappeared one month ago. We spent lots of time to find them, but failed. Have you fed it? Please raise it, or you can give it to animal asylum."
