Indirectly killed a feral Kitten!

Sometimes I walk around my neighborhood whenever I am having trouble fall in sleeping. Last night around 12:30am, after 2 hours of laying in my bed and couldn’t fall asleep, I decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood. While walking past a church near my house, I heard a very faint “wa-wu wa-wu wa-wu” noise. It sounded like a child yelling/crying. It took me a few minutes to pinpoint where and which direction the noise is coming from; the noise was coming from a warehouse across the street from the church. Out of curiosity, I decided to cross the street and see what is going on.

As I slowly approaches the warehouse, I see a small animal in the grass bush on the left side of the warehouse. When I took a closer look I realized it was an orange tabby kitten and it was responsible for the faint “wa-wu wa-wu wa-wu” noise I was hearing. It was the only kitten I can find in the area and I do not see a mother cat anywhere. It hisses at me whenever I get close and I can’t tell its gender. When I finally decided to pick it up and bring the poor little kitten home, the kitten did not react well to me picking it up. It started to act violently and aggressively meowing; I had to put it down on the grass. As soon as I let it go, the kitten started running away from me. Instead of running further into the grass area, the kitten ran towards the road. Sadly the worst possible outcome happened, the kitten was hit by a car. I picked up his body and its mouth was moving not no sound, A few minutes later its mouth stopped moving and I am pretty sure the kitten is dead.

I can’t help but feel responsible for this kitten’s death. Maybe If I just kept walking instead of letting my curiosity get the better of me, the kitten could still be alive. Maybe the mother cat is out looking for food and I should have just minded my own business. Rest in peace kitten, I am very sorry!

I am so sorry that this happened! *hugs* I can't imagine how awful that feels, and I'm sorry that this had to happen to you and the poor kitten.

I'm pretty sure you know this already, but I think it helps to hear this from someone else -- it's not your fault. You went after the kitten with only the best of intentions; you wanted to help. You went and investigated a strange sound, which could have be anything, a kitten, a kid -- could you imagine if everybody ignores the signs of someone in distress? That was very brave of you. And when you found the kitten, instead of being afraid of it hurting you with its teeth and claws like so many people I know, you went for it.There is nothing, nothing in what you did that you should regret or feel wrong about, you did a good thing, and you shouldn't let this experience stop you from trying to help.

What ultimately happened was incredibly unfortunate, but just because you had a role in the events that preceded, that doesn't mean you are responsible for what happened after. Sure, you put the kitten down, it could have run any direction and have been just fine, but it went for the road. It went for the road, and could have been just fine, but the driver of the car either didn't see it, couldn't stop, or didn't care to stop. You are not responsible for either of these things happening. That was the driver, and that was the kitten.

There is no way that you could have known that the worst set of circumstances could have occurred. So many other horrible things could have happened to that kitten if you didn't help, and all of those things were much more likely to occur than what ultimately did.