Stowaway cat survives four weeks in container en route from Noord-Brabant to Curacao
Cats are known to slip into the strangest places, but this one must have regretted his curious nature after slipping into a container in Moerdijk only to become trapped inside for four weeks with no food, water, or light. Surprised port workers discovered the white and black critter, severely shaken but seemingly physically okay, when they opened the container on Curacao.
The container was sealed and loaded onto a ship in Moerdijk, Noord-Brabant, on January 11. It spent three weeks on a ship and was then in storage on Curacao for another week before it was opened on February 7.
The alarmed port workers immediately called in the Kitten Rescue Curacao Foundation. “It's really unimaginable that the cat survived,” the foundation said on Facebook. “Four weeks without food or drink and at the end of the trip, in very hot conditions. The cat is emaciated and very scared but under the circumstances, he is actually doing quite well.”
Volunteers from the rescue organization first tried to catch the frightened stowaway, but he kept going deeper into the container. They eventually lured him out by putting food in a trap. He is now in quarantine at the Kitten Rescue Curacao, where they named him Wonder.
A week later, Wonder is carefully starting to come out of his shell, the foundation said. “Physically, things seem to be going in the right direction, although we are not out of the danger zone yet. A long period without food/water can also manifest later in organ damage,” the foundation said. “For now, we don’t want to subject him to all kinds of physical examinations in order to keep the stress to a minimum.”
Wonder is an unneutered male with no readable chip, indicating that he might have been a stray before this ordeal. The foundation is trying to find out if he had an owner in the Netherlands.
