On Monday evening, SEPTA received a call about kittens trapped in the walls of a Market-Frankford Line station. One day later, workers had rescued a cat and her five kittens, who are now in the care of a local rescue group.
Transportation officials still aren't sure how the animals got stuck inside 63rd Street Station in West Philly, which is on the city's border with Millbourne, Delaware County. The Stray Cat Relief Fund, a Philly and New Jersey-based organization that finds homes for stray cats, immediately took in the mother and two of her kittens. A SEPTA employee initially took the other three kittens home, but they were reunited with their mother and siblings late Wednesday evening. All of the cats are now in the care of the rescue group.
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The saga started around 6 p.m. Monday, when a SEPTA supervisor got a call about "kittens possibly being inside a wall or ceiling, the transit authority's director of media relations, Andrew Busch, said via email. Two SEPTA employees searched for several hours, eventually discovering and freeing one kitten from the ceiling. At the time, they could not find any other cats.
By Tuesday afternoon, however, another manager scanned the area and located two more kittens with their mother. The final two kittens emerged Tuesday evening.
The Stray Cat Relief Fund is seeking foster homes for the cat and kittens. The kittens do not have names yet, but the rescue group has dubbed the mother Joan, after Philadelphia's first female trolley operator Joan Woollcott.
This story has been updated with new information about the cats' reunion.