Video: One Block’s Battle to Save a Cat Stuck in a Tree

For Immediate Release:
April 11, 2019

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

For eight nights, residents of a Pasadena, California, neighborhood heard a cat crying for help from the top of a tree. They tried putting out food, making a ramp, putting up a ladder, and calling every city agency that they could think of, but the cat was still stuck—until they called PETA’s emergency helpline on April 2. A new PETA video released today shows the successful rescue on April 3, when professional tree climber Miles Burkart from Redondo Beach scaled the tree, coaxed the cat into his arms, and took her down to safety—and everyone on the block celebrated.

“Every single person in this Pasadena neighborhood wanted a happy ending for this cat, and they didn’t stop trying to help her until she was safe on the ground,” says PETA Senior Vice President Lisa Lange, a Pasadena native who assisted with the rescue. “PETA hopes this neighborhood’s kindness will inspire people everywhere to keep their own cats indoors and do whatever it takes to help other animals in need.”

The rescued cat now lives safely indoors, which PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—points out is the safest place for all cats. Not only do cats who are allowed to roam outdoors often get stranded in trees, they’re also vulnerable to predators, suffering from hunger and dehydration, and often being harmed by people who considered them a nuisance. They’re also at risk of ingesting poisons and pesticides, contracting diseases from other animals, getting lost or hit by cars, and much more.

More information about this rescue is available here,