PETS

Adopt, Don’t Shop

What I learned from my daughter’s foster kittens

Seen: Two kittens — maybe four weeks, maybe six — at my daughter’s house in Hawaii.

Heard: About 2 million feral cats roam the state — 300,000 on Oahu, where my family lives.

Noted: Nineteenth-Century Europeans introduced cats to Hawaii for rodent control. Mark Twain wasn’t joking when he noted, “Tom cats, Mary Ann cats…platoons of cats…regiments of cats…millions of cats,” during an 1866 trip.

Quoted: My youngest partnered with a local rescue last month and so far has saved eight kittens, either adopted or awaiting homes at the local cat cafe.

“I’d take Leila if I had room,” said the mom to one dog and two grown cats — all rescues — about the cutie above. “They break my heart, but it also grows when they find a family.”