Hopkins, the World's Youngest, Tiniest, and Loneliest Flier, Is Abandoned in a Wretched Toilet at an Airport in Cleveland

Stoic Little Hopkins Was Left All Alone and Without a Friend in the World... 

 "She appears to be healthy. She's about five months old (and) just getting her adult teeth and no fleas."

-- Debra Bartowick of the Able Animal Hospital

Individuals traveling with cats have not always provided them with the meticulous care and safety precautions that they have deserved but of late some fliers have taken their callous disregard for their well-being to an altogether new nadir by inexcusably dumping them at airports. For example, early on January 6th an unidentified individual abandoned a pretty five-month-old gray and white kitten subsequently named Hopkins in a toilet at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, fourteen kilometers southwest of the metropolis of the same name.

She was discovered by an employee of Southwest Airlines trapped inside a soft carrier and sitting on a sink in a lavatory located near the Transportation Safety Administration's PreCheck area. So far no one has been willing to speculate as to either how long that she was stranded there or how many travelers, workers at the airport, and employees of the airlines turned blind eyes to her perilous plight.

Considering that she was discovered in the wee hours, it is entirely possible that she had been relegated to that smelly shithouse for the better part of the night. The important development, however, was that the conscientious employee of Southwest took it upon either herself or himself not only to rescue her but also to go the extra mile by paying a call upon all nine or so passenger carriers that operate out of the airport in order to determine if she should have been on one of their departing flights.

When that effort came up fruitless, the employee then contacted airport administration which for its part made several announcements over the public address system but, once again, to no avail. What transpired next is not exactly clear but one way or the other Hopkins wound up at the Able Animal Hospital in Parma, fourteen kilometers southwest of Cleveland, where she was held for three days in the care of Debra Bartowick just in case her owner should have a change of heart.

"She appears to be healthy. She's about five months old (and) just getting her adult teeth and no fleas," she told WOIO-TV of Cleveland on January 6th. (See "Five-Month-Old Cat Found Abandoned in Bathroom at Cleveland Hopkins Airport.")  

Well! That certainly is one hell of a way to describe such a pretty little kitten! It is doubtful that Bartowick would take it all that kindly if the best that anyone could ever say about her was that she has some of her "teeth and no fleas." To her credit, however, she did add that Hopkins was affectionate and playful.

When no one came forward in order to reclaim her, Bartowick transferred her to the Forever Friends Foundation (FFF) in Northfield, thirty kilometers southeast of Cleveland, where she also volunteers. While she was waylaid there, she also was spayed so, regrettably, there are not going to be any little Hopkinses in the future in order to brighten the world.

Otherwise, this story did have a happy ending on January 24th when she was adopted by a woman identified only by her first name as Jacqueline. In doing so, she wasted little time in vowing to spoil the little one rotten. (To see a 1:43 minute video of the happy adoption, go to FFF's Facebook page.) 

Although she previously had been dubbed Coco Bean and Herb, Jacqueline has, apparently, settled upon Hopkins even though Coco Bean would have been a much more appropriate choice. That which is not in dispute, however, is that she is going to be much better off with her new owner than she was with her old heartless one.

As far as the cretin who so cruelly abandoned Hopkins is concerned, Bartowick has had some choice words for that individual. "I think they're (sic) a horrible person. You don't do that to a living creature," she told WOIO-TV. "They (sic) don't know the animal could have ended up in worse hands."

Reprehensibly, dumping cats at airports has become rather common. "From previous experience I've seen other animals who weren't able to fly, and not able to be accommodated," Meredith Janik, who not only used to work at the airport but also rescues cats and, more importantly, played a key role in hooking up Hopkins with Bartowick, told WOIO-TV. "They were just left next to the trash can at the airport."

Equally deplorable, travelers also are abandoning dogs at the airport. "They've indicated that the airport found a Beagle this week from a person who decided that they (sic) were going to travel, leave their animal and continue on their trip," she added to WOIO-TV.

Like Bartowick, Janik believes that there should be serious consequences for individuals who abandon cats, dogs, and other animals at airports. "The person should be prosecuted for abandonment," she averred to WOIO-TV. "It's neglect to leave a cat unattended at an airport, so it should be neglect that comes with a fine and some sort of punishment."

Oddly enough, this does not appear to have been a case of a harried flier with a flight to catch but without there being an additional seat on the plane for either his or her cat. On the contrary, preliminary inquiries tended to indicate that the culprit took a Regional Transit Authority train back downtown after dumping Hopkins as opposed to having boarded an airliner.

WOIO-TV has hinted that the airport may even know the identity of the person but even if it does an arrest seems highly unlikely. That is even more so the case given that the airport has not even divulged if the kitten was found in either a men's room or a ladies' lavatory.

It is a worrisome thought, but it is entirely conceivable that some individuals, without any intention whatsoever of boarding a flight, have come to view crowded airports as a safe and convenient venue in order get rid of their no longer wanted cats and dogs. Nothing positive can be said for individuals who dump animals anywhere and at any time but Hopkins' plight should serve as a wake-up call for all airports and carriers to carefully examine all refuse, bags, and other items before discarding them.

...until Debra Bartowick Belatedly Came to Her Rescue

No statistics are kept on the matter, but if the small number of cats and kittens that are retrieved from discarded bags at the last minute is any indicator, the number of them that die in the trash each year must surely be astronomically high. (See Cat Defender posts of October 3, 2009, February 24, 2010, February 25, 2010, and October 14, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Deliberately Entombed Inside a Canvas Bag for Six Days, Duff Is Saved by a Pair of Alert Maintenance Workers at an Apartment Complex in Spokane," "Sealed Up in a Backpack Inside a Plastic Bag and Then Tossed in the Trash, Titch Is Rescued by a Passerby in Essex," "Bess Twice Survives Attempts Made on Her Life Before Landing on All Four Paws at a Pub in Lincolnshire," and "Chucked Out in the Trash, Tabitha Winds Up in an Oxygen Chamber with Four Broken Ribs, an Injured Lung, and Pneumonia," plus the Daily Mail, August 26, 2010, "Greyhaired Bank Worker Who Dumped Cat in Wheelie Bin Could Face Court as RSPCA Prosecutors Review Case.")

Other cats have made it all the way to recycling centers and to city dumps before being rescued. (See Cat Defender posts of August 23, 2007, March 23, 2009, May 4, 2010, and May 12, 2017 entitled, respectively, "An Alert Scrap Metal Worker Discovers a Pretty 'Penny' Hidden in a Mound of Rubble," "Mistakenly Tossed Out with the Trash, Autumn Survives a Harrowing Trip to the City Dump in Order to Live Another Day," "Picked Up by a Garbage Truck Driver and Dumped with the Remainder of the Trash, Alfie Narrowly Misses Being Recycled," and "Miracle Maisy Is Bound and Tied, Soaked in Petrol, Sealed Up in a Plastic Bag, and Then Run Through a Trash Compactor but, Amazingly, Is Still Alive Thanks to a Pair of Compassionate Garbagemen.")

Still other owners hate their cats so much that they make doubly sure to kill them by not only sealing them up in cages and bags but by additionally weighting down these death chambers with heavy rocks and then either depositing them in streams or leaving them behind on beaches in order to be drowned by the incoming tide. (See Cat Defender posts of January 13, 2006, May 20, 2008, and July 9, 2014 entitled, respectively, "Montana Firefighters Rescue a 'Lucky' Calico Cat Who Was Caged and Purposefully Thrown into an Icy River," "Malice Aforethought: An Upstate New York Cat Is Saved from a Watery Grave by a Dead Tree and a Passerby; a New Hampshire Cat Is Not Nearly So Fortunate," and "Dumped in the Normans Kill, Chance Did Not Have a Prayer in Hell Until a Jogger Who Had Turned Down the Music Heard His Desperate Cries for Help.")

In addition to members of the public dumping cats at airports, such facilities seldom have been hospitable environments for them. For instance, in late 2007 JFK International Airport in Queens eradicated its population of homeless cats.

Since the airport is located in a remote area, it is highly likely that most of its innocent victims at one time or another had owners before they were either abandoned or became lost at the facility and that serves only to compound the injustice of their eradication. (See Cat Defender post of November 5, 2007 entitled "The Port Authority Gives JFK's Long-Term Resident Felines the Boot and Rescue Groups Are Too Impotent to Save Them.")

At Manchester International Airport, management betrayed its longtime resident cat, Ollie, by getting rid of her once she had grown old. She was initially taken in and given a home by a nearby resident who soon thereafter had her killed off. (See Cat Defender posts of November 28, 2007, November 8, 2009, and May 28, 2015 entitled, respectively, "Lovable Ollie Finds a Home at Manchester International Airport After Workers and Vendors Come to His Aid," "Oops! Ollie Belatedly Gives Up a Closely Guarded Secret Much to the Chagrin of the Employees of Manchester International Airport," and "Abandoned, Homeless on the Street, Expelled by the Ingrates at Manchester International Airport, and Finally Whacked by Her Last Guardian, So Ran the Course of Ollie's Sad and Turbulent Life.")

The only airport ever known to have shown any lasting fealty to a cat is Son Sant Joan Aeropuerto in Palma de Mallorca in the Balearic Islands which for more than a decade permitted a white Persian named Mumu to live at its terminal with its owner, a middle-aged German ex-pat named Brigitte. (See Cat Defender post of November 3, 2008 entitled "Down and Out in Paradise: Against All Odds, Brigitte and Mumu Strive to Forge New Lives for Themselves at a Mallorcan Airport.")

The airlines are even more ailurophobic than airports in that they lose countless cats each year. (See Cat Defender post of February 28, 2020 entitled "Lost by Lufthansa at Dulles, Milo Is Eventually Located but He Would Appear to Owe His Deliverance More to Sheer Luck Rather Than to Human Ingenuity.")

Others freeze to death in cargo holds. (See Cat Defender post of April 7, 2009 entitled "A Pretty Minskin Arrives in Oregon Frozen as Solid as a Block of Ice Following a Fatal Cross-Country Flight in the Cargo Hold of an Airliner.")

The reason that the airlines are able to get away with so brazenly lying about the actual number of cats and other animals that they lose and kill each year can be traced to Section 710 of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the Twenty-First Century, Public Law 106-81 of 2000. Specifically, it defines an animal as "any warm or cold-blooded animal which, at the time of transportation, is being kept as a pet in a family household in the United States."

Such a narrowly defined definition thus excludes, inter alia, animals that are owned by pet shops, research laboratories, breeders, and zoos. It also excludes all livestock and in particular baby chickens which are known to freeze to death by the thousands each year in cargo holds. 

It is almost superfluous to point out but military aircrafts, whether they be fighter jets, bombers, missiles, rockets, or drones, indiscriminately kill scores of cats and other animals every time that they are deployed. They additionally destroy land, pollute the air and streams, increase noise pollution, and waste huge amounts of petrol. (See Cat Defender post of October 12, 2006 entitled "A Few Hundred Cats and Dogs Are Airlifted Out of Lebanon but Cluster Bombs and an Oil Slick Continue to Kill Animals and Marine Life.")

In Hopkins' case, however, she owes her life to the compassion shown her by the unidentified employee of the much maligned Southwest Airlines. The Dallas-based carrier may not know much about scheduling but it sure knows how to treat a kitten in distress and that is far more important.

Besides, what difference does it make if one's flight departs on time today or sometime next week? One day is as good -- or bad -- as the next for being trapped for hours on end inside a sardine can at thirty-three-thousand feet surrounded by drunks, terrorists, and passengers indiscriminately spreading COVID-19 through their steadfast refusal to wear masks. 

In conclusion, it is sad to accept the harsh reality that the outside world has in all likelihood seen and heard the last of Hopkins. It would be much appreciated if Jacqueline and the FFF would keep her many fans apprised of her progress from time to time but that is unlikely.

Therefore, it is time to say good-bye to this intrepid kitten that the world had the pleasure of getting to know but oh so ever fleetingly. Hopefully, the remainder of her days will be a huge improvement over her rude introduction to this cruel, uncaring, and hostile world. Alles Gute!

Photos: the Able Animal Hospital (Hopkins in her carrier) and WOIO-TV (Hopkins with Bartowick).