If your cat is in a tree, don’t call Ashland Fire

By Midge Raymond

What’s the first thing to come to mind when a cat is high up in a tree? Call the fire department — right?

That’s what I did last summer when my husband discovered a kitten high up in a tree in Triangle Park. Technically, I called the Ashland police dispatcher, but when I asked if the fire department could come, the reply was no: this is not something Ashland Fire & Rescue handles.

Jim Bowen’s neighbor had the same call-the-fire-department instinct when she saw a cat in a tree in their south Ashland neighborhood. Bowen had been out walking Leroy, his mostly indoor cat, on a harness and leash when a garbage can fell over and startled the orange-and-white tabby.

“I let go of the leash, and he bolted and ran around the house three times, and then up the black walnut tree in the backyard,” Bowen says. “I didn’t know at first that he went up the tree. I assumed he went through a hole in the fence and onto the next street.”

Bowen began searching the neighborhood, asking whether anyone had seen Leroy, before circling back home and discovering that Leroy was high up in the tree. His neighbor, worried about the harness and leash still attached, said she had called 911.

Yet Ashland Fire & Rescue Public Information Officer Chris Chambers says calls about cats in trees are in fact “very rare” — and adds that they are not equipped to respond.

“One, it is difficult to get a firefighter into a tree,” Chambers says. “We are not professionals like arborists, who climb trees every day — it’s not something we train on.”

It’s also dangerous for firefighters, without specific training and equipment, to rescue frightened or feral cats. “However iconic a cat in a tree is for firefighters, there have actually been injuries, and I would guess even deaths, trying to rescue cats from trees.”

Chambers adds that cats are very capable. “I have one myself,” he says. “They do amazing things. If a cat can get up a tree, a cat can generally get down a tree.”

Bowen, who was unable to coax Leroy from the tree, received a call back from Ashland Fire after he followed up on his neighbor’s 911 call. He was assured the fire department had never seen a cat die in a tree and that cats do come down eventually.

“I’m glad he called,” Bowen says. “He explained they don’t do this anymore, that it’s too dangerous due to bite risks.”

So why is it our first instinct to call the fire department? Chambers points out that the fire department does rescue animals — just usually not from trees. “We do carry oxygen masks for animals, and occasionally we use them. We’ve been able to resuscitate at least two cats that I know of — one was in the Plaza fire,” he says, referring to the 2022 Plaza fire.

“It’s not that we don’t care about cats and animals,” he says. “We certainly do. If it is in the course of what we are trained to do, like an actual fire, we are definitely are going to look for animals to rescue, and we even have the equipment to save them.”

So instead of calling Ashland Fire & Rescue, what should you do if you see a cat in a tree?

The Oregon Humane Society offers tips and a list of arborists throughout the state who might be able to help. Tips include finding the owner (who may be more likely to call the cat down), offering food, and leaning a ladder or another way to get down against the tree. And the online resource Cat in a Tree Emergency Rescue, founded by Seattle-area tree climber Dan Kraus, offers a worldwide directory of specialized rescuers, from arborists and tree climbers to emergency animal rescue groups.

In general, while arborists are experts at climbing trees, rescuing stressed-out felines adds another dimension entirely, and not every arborist can take on a cat rescue.

“Because the cat is already stressed, we want to avoid a confrontation between the climber and a cat at height. Plus, climbers aren’t trained to deal with animals. There’s also the chance that a cat might become more stressed by the appearance of the climber and go out further on an unstable limb,” says Joel Wangle, certified arborist and second-generation owner of Beaver Tree Service, which owns Ashland’s Upper Limb-it tree care services. “We receive only a handful of calls about cats in trees each year, and we recommend being patient, even though it’s stressful; that cat will most likely find its way down. We want you to be safe, too. Don’t climb. There’s a high likelihood that a pet owner climbing could be injured while the cat can make its way back to the ground unassisted.”

While it’s hard not to reach up when a cat is in distress, Wangle is right. When Bowen and another neighbor tried to reach Leroy with extension ladders, they couldn’t get high enough, and Leroy did scoot higher into the tree. The Triangle Park kitten had done the same when my husband and I tried climbing up the tree with food.

“Usually we just say, if the cat is in the tree, put some food at the bottom,” Chambers says. “Eventually the cat will get hungry enough and it will figure out its way and get down.”

Since the kitten wouldn’t come down for us, and we didn’t know whether she was feral, we decided to leave the food and come back to check on her. When we returned an hour later, the kitten was in the arms of Arnica Wertheimer, who lives down the street.

“I walked outside to let the dog out,” she says, “and from two blocks away I could hear her. I recognized it was a kitty in distress.”

Wertheimer went to the park and saw the kitten “way up in a huge oak tree. I went to her and basically sang her down.”

But it took a while. The kitten kept coming down, then getting scared and running back up. Wertheimer was about to take a break but then decided: “I’m not giving up on this kitty. I’m going to get her.”

The kitten, whom my husband had first heard in the tree 10 hours earlier, “was ready to be rescued,” Wertheimer says. As she waited and called to her, the kitten circled around the tree and then, finally, she “leaped into my arms.”

Chambers said time is usually what helps the most. “It’s worth waiting at least 24 hours. It usually works itself out without us having to do anything.”

Wertheimer, who could not find the kitten’s owner, decided to keep her, naming her Corrina, after one of her favorite Bob Dylan recordings (“Corrina, Corrina” by Bo Carter). “She just looks at me with adoring eyes. We’re supposed to be together.”

It’s not unheard of for a fire department to come to the rescue; the Rogue Valley Times covered this story of Jackson County Fire District No. 3 rescuing a kitten in White City. In this case, the kitten was 40 feet up a skinny tree and had been crying for three full days, tormenting residents who couldn’t get to him. Likewise, by calling around, you may be able to find a cat-savvy arborist who has the experience and equipment to handle a rescue. And if a cat is stuck on a utility pole, due to the potential dangers involved, Cat in a Tree Emergency Rescue recommends calling the utility company.

But cats in trees usually do make their own way down, often with a little help — like Bowen’s cat, Leroy. Though Bowen kept checking on Leroy at intervals throughout the night, leaving food and trying to coax him down, the cat remained high in the tree. Then, Bowen says, “I noticed there was a lower point he didn’t seem to want to jump from.” So he and a neighbor devised a platform that Leroy could safely jump onto, and eventually he did just that. From there, he was able to get to the roof, onto the upstairs balcony, and back inside. “He walked into the house like nothing happened.”

Ashland resident Midge Raymond is co-founder of Ashland Creek Press and author of the novel “My Last Continent.” Email suggestions and questions for Catty Corner to her at [email protected].