Apple AirTag helps volunteers rescue mother cat, six kittens during cold snap

Volunteers braved last week’s freezing temperatures to rescue a mother cat and her six kittens who were hiding in a storage facility on Emery Street in Waltham.

The rescue began after residents reported a friendly pregnant cat repeatedly appearing for food despite the snow and cold. Volunteers Laura Pietrok and Caroline DeMarco from The Cat Connection and Michelle Gelnaw of Charles River Alleycats sprang into action.

The volunteers trapped the cat safely and brought her to the Veterinary Emergency Group in Newton. The veterinary team discovered she was producing milk — evidence she had recently given birth and that her kittens were still somewhere nearby.

With temperatures below freezing, the team feared the kittens might not survive long without their mother.

The Cat Connection’s board of directors called an emergency conference call to make an agonizing decision: Keep the mom safe and sacrifice the kittens, or put her back outside, placing her at risk. “We made a decision to go for it all,” said Karen Evans, the board’s vice president.

To locate the litter, volunteers fitted the mother cat with a collar equipped with an Apple AirTag and released her back at the site. She immediately led them across the street to a snow-covered debris pile behind the storage facility. Volunteers searched the area, combing through pallets, discarded furniture and other debris where the kittens might be hidden.

Over two days, the AirTag signal showed a pattern: the cat repeatedly crossed the street and lingered in the same debris pile. The volunteers eventually realized she was going inside the storage facility. After extensive searching, the team found the kittens — six tiny newborns, estimated to be about two weeks old — tucked inside a box of T-shirts.

“It truly was a needle-in-a-haystack situation,” said Taline Lorensian, president of The Cat Connection. “The Apple AirTag helped us understand where the mother cat was spending her time, but it ultimately took persistence and careful searching by our volunteers to find the kittens.”

All six kittens were recovered safely, along with their mother. The feline family is now resting comfortably in a foster home, where the kittens are nursing and gaining strength.

The Cat Connection is a volunteer-run, community-supported nonprofit based in Waltham that rescues homeless cats, provides veterinary care and finds permanent homes for cats across MetroWest and Greater Boston.