Last year, Jill Hicks was unsuspectingly on her way to a friend’s house when she suddenly saw something that stopped her heart. A small, newborn animal slowly crawled along the road towards the traffic. Jill immediately pulled her car over to the side and saved the animal from a terrible death.

“At first I thought it was a baby bunny because it had such a fluffy coat,” she says. “As I got closer, I realized it was a little kitten.”

She wrapped the little animal in a sweater she had in her car and held it close to her. “I thought it might be a dumped kitten and there’d be more than one, but I couldn’t find a mother or any other kittens.”

Take it home

Hicks decided to bring the kitten to her house, even if it meant she would be late to her friend’s or miss the whole appointment.

She already had a big dog and an older cat at home, so bringing the kitten into the house didn’t seem like a good idea. So she decided to set up a comfortable place in her garage for the kitten, complete with a litter tray, food and a drink bowl. From a cardboard box and her sweater, she made a basket.

Then she took a picture of the kitten and posted it on social media, asking if anyone wanted to adopt the kitten. After that, she went to her friend’s to eat there.

When she came back, one of her neighbors came straight away. She asked Jill if she still had the kitten, to which Jill replied “Yes, I still have it.” “May I see him? I think it might be a red lynx. Haven’t you seen all the Facebook posts?”

The red lynx

Hicks and her neighbor looked at the kitten again. Her tail looked different from that of a normal kitten and she also started to growl and blow. “Yeah, I think this might be a red lynx,” Jill admitted.

After this surprising discovery, Hicks corrected her Facebook post. “Okay, I’m not looking for a new owner for the kitten I found down the road.” read the post. “Apparently, I saved a red lynx.” The post went viral right away.

Because the kitten was so small and vulnerable, Hicks stayed with her all night in the garage.

The next day, Hicks called the For Fox Sake Wildlife Rescue. They took over the little lynx, which was about 7 weeks old, from her.

Source: Shutterstock

Arwen

The red lynx -now called Arwen- appeared to suffer from severe anemia, which made her very tame in the beginning. However, when she regained some strength, she started to behave like a real lynx again: brave and fearless, without any interest in people. “When she is no longer in need of care, she will be evicted to a protected area,” told the shelter spokesperson.

Hicks won’t see Arwen anymore because the shelter tries to minimize contact with people, but she hasn’t forgotten the kitten she rescued from the highway. “She stole a little piece of my heart and she’ll always keep it with her,” said Hicks.