A ‘miracle’ in Mount Laurel: A kitten-catcher’s predawn rescue mission

It was still dark when Danielle Williams took her dog, Savannah, for her 6 a.m. walk through their Mount Laurel neighborhood on Friday. Then, she heard a noise: a kitten meowing, and scampering toward her for help.

But Savannah, mistaking it for a toy, began barking, and the cat skittered away under a car. Williams, who is 39 weeks pregnant, said she tried to lure it out — but crawling underneath a car wasn’t an option.

Williams, 39, knew she needed to save the tiny animal before temperatures dropped to a low of around 7 degrees that night. So, she decided to crowdsource a solution.

She posted on a Facebook group for Mount Laurel residents — and within minutes received a response from Heidi Kovalick, 56, the financial aid director for Rowan University, who has a decade of cat-coaxing under her belt.

Kovalick, whose home abuts a wooded area, said she was drawn into the hobby by her then-teenage daughter, “Jessica the cul-de-sac cat catcher” — and subsequently found that there’s endless need for her help. She’s found cats in dumpsters, in her own car, and in the woods. Once, she did a trap-neuter-release initiative with the Friends of the Burlington County Animal Shelter and caught 17 cats in half an hour in her backyard. She currently has five foster cats — she works with Burlington County Animal Alliance to place them — plus two she considers her pets.

On Friday, Kovalick grabbed a cage, a flashlight, and some food, and met Williams in the dark driveway.

At first, they tried to keep it down, Williams said. “I was like this lady is sleeping and she’s going to think we’re trying to steal her car or something.”

Eventually, though, they gave up and rang the bell. Tiana Randall, 42, answered groggily, at first, but came outside and popped the hood, revealing a kitten curled up on her engine.

It tried to run, but Kovalick was quicker. “The second she grabbed it and put it on her chest it immediately settled down,” Randall said.

She was grateful that a neighbor had noticed the kitten and gone out of her way to find help — especially since, in the cold weather, Randall starts her car remotely from inside her house.

“I never would have even heard it,” she said. “I feel like this little kitten was meant to be saved and to bring happiness and joy to somebody.”

To Randall, it was also a reminder: “The decisions you make in your day can completely make a difference.”

Kovalick took the cat home to begin the process of getting it socialized, healthy, and ready to adopt — a process that involves weeks of feeding by hand to build trust.

Randall suggested she name the cat Spider, in reference to a distinctive mark on its forehead.

Kovalick has another idea. ”I was thinking something like ‘Miracle,’ ” she said, “because she is a little Christmas miracle. We found her before the weather turned really brutally cold. She most likely would not have survived.”

Staff writer Michael Klein contributed to this article.