The Pacific Northwest is known for its towering trees. Douglas firs rank as the second-highest tree species in the world and can reach heights of over 300 feet, about as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Whether chasing a bird or escaping predators like coyotes, some terrified cats get stuck high up in these trees. In Oregon and Washington, arborists aid cats crying for help.
The Oregon Humane Society offers a list of arborists who can safely remove cats from trees, including Rick Bunch. The nonprofit Canopy Cat Rescue, co-founded by Tom Otto, helps cats throughout Washington. Otto and Bunch join us with more details about their work.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We end today with cats stuck in trees. It seems almost like a fictional problem, a staple of cartoons and kids’ books. But our next guests can tell you that that is very real. Many cats that climb up trees are unable or unwilling to get down on their own. Luckily, these arborists can and do go up to help. Rick Bunch from Portland is behind 503 Cat in a Tree. Tom Otto, who lives in Olympia, is the co-founder of the nonprofit Canopy Cat Rescue. Welcome to Think Out Loud.
Rick Bunch: Thanks, Dave.
Miller: So Tom, first – how did you get into this?
Tom Otto: Oh, boy. I think that almost every tree climber at some point in their tree climbing career is going to get asked to rescue a cat out of a tree, because it just happens that often. I don’t remember when my first rescue was, but it definitely was just a few years after I’d started to climb trees.
Miller: Rick, is it the same for you? You were up there, I don’t know, to take care of sick trees, delimb or something, and someone said “Hey, can you help with the cat?”
Bunch: Pretty much the same. I actually got a cat out of a tree before I became an arborist because my friends know I was a good tree climber and their cat was stuck. So it does happen.
Miller: What do you remember about that very first time?
Bunch: The very first time, I knew the cat, so I just climbed up there. I didn’t have any ropes or anything and the cat actually climbed on my shoulder. I brought it down on my shoulder, which is not the way you do it professionally, but it worked.
Miller: And that one knew you. Tom, is it harder if they don’t know you? And I imagine the vast majority of the time, these are strangers to you and you are a stranger to them.
Otto: Yeah, I don’t know any of the cats that I go to try to rescue. As Rick will tell you, climbing the trees is sometimes the easy part and we really do a lot of cat behavior analysis. We’re reading the cats as much as we can. Sometimes before we get to the site, we talk to the owner, we ask them all kinds of questions about their cat. And then as soon as we get there, we read the cat’s behavior, even as we’re climbing. It can be challenging to win over a skittish cat or maybe a little unruly cat.
Miller: Rick, what are you looking for if you also are doing cat behavior analysis, as Tom puts it?
Bunch: I always like to know how old the cat is, what its attitude’s generally like. If it’s a feral cat, a barn cat, you can expect it to be a little more challenging. Just getting general information from the cat’s people.
Miller: Tom, do they ever just hiss and scratch, even though you’re there to help them?
Otto: Oh yeah, sure. Oftentimes, cats that are skittish or maybe would be a little aggressive aren’t really gonna let you get too close to them. They will oftentimes find an exit route. Sometimes that means climbing down really fast or jumping to a lower branch, and sometimes it means them just kind of jumping out of the tree.
Miller: Wow, that’s happened to you?
Otto: Oh yeah.
Miller: OK, that seems like potentially a worst case scenario. But let’s say that it’s just sort of medium unhappy level. Can you just hold it with one hand and climb down with another? Actually getting down with an unhappy cat seems like a really challenging thing.
Otto: Oh yeah, definitely. We don’t really keep them unsecured for the ride down. So coming down is not usually that hard, we set up climbing system like arborists would and we come out of the tree pretty quickly. But we usually put the cat in a bag, a net or some way to kind of secure it so that, even if it gets unruly on the way down, it can’t really get us or get out.
Miller: Rick, is it the same thing? The cats are secured on the way down.
Bunch: Yeah, I’ve got a bag that I use, it’s a bite resistant glove with a bag sewn on. So most cats are happy to see me. I can make friends with them, get them by the scruff, just kind of roll them into the bag and bring them down that way.
Miller: Then you don’t let the cat out of the bag,
Bunch: Correct.
Miller: Do you have certain sounds that you make to calm them down when you get up there? And if so, can we hear them?
Bunch: I’m pretty much talking to the cat the whole time. If the cat’s meowing a lot, that’s usually a good sign that they are willing to accept help. But I just try to talk back to them with a sad or empathetic meow. But then when you get up to them, I can “pshw pshw pshw,” and I’ll scratch my helmet, it makes a nice scratching sound. The happy blinks and I’ll actually scratch on the bark like a happy cat scratching. I’ll use the Feliway, the cat calming pheromones, which I figure can’t hurt.
Miller: You spray yourself with this pheromone?
Bunch: Yeah. And I carry treats. Some cats are responsive to treats, some not, but there’s all kinds of stuff we do.
Miller: Tom, how often do you get a call from someone who says, “my cat went up into a tree 15 minutes ago, please come now to help.”
Otto: It happens. A lot of people will give their cat a little bit of time and try to call it down. But we do get the occasional call where the cat’s really only been stuck for a few minutes. And sometimes it really just takes some talking on the phone and we can get them to try a few things before we want to respond right away. Because clearly, if the cat sometimes does come down on its own, we don’t want to head out there and waste our time.
Miller: How long do you recommend that people wait before they call a professional?
Otto: That’s a tough question. It is dependent on the situation and sometimes it’s depending on the people, what their threshold is too. I sometimes recommend people give them as long as 12 hours, sometimes 24 hours. Overnight, the cat generally is gonna be OK. But again, it really depends.
Miller: Rick, what are the most common reasons that cats end up in trees in the first place?
Bunch: A lot of times cats are just being cats. But a lot of times, it’s like an indoor cat that’s never been outside, and they get outside and they panic and jet up a tree. A lot of times they get chased by a dog or even coyotes, so sometimes it’s good that cats have an escape route. Their claws are really good at going up, but going down is tricky for some cats to figure out.
Miller: I hadn’t realized that. So Tom, their claws are good for climbing up, but it’s different on the way down?
Otto: Yeah, cats claws are shaped really well for climbing up things. There are some wild cats that can kind of rotate their paws and come down. I think spotted leopards somewhere and they will come down kind of headfirst. But cats, the ones that do climb down, oftentimes they come down backwards, so they come down with their claws the same way.
Miller: Just the way humans should go down a ladder?
Otto: Correct. Or a raccoon or a bear will work their way down like that, and cats will do that.
Miller: Tom, could you tell us about a particularly memorable rescue?
Otto: Oh boy. So I generally do three a day here outside of Olympia. I did one a few months ago, last winter, maybe, in Belfair. The cat, they’d been missing it for a few days. And when I got there, they weren’t sure exactly where it was, but I spotted it and it was in an extremely tall tree. When I finally got up to it, it wasn’t very friendly, but I was able to get close enough and get it. But when I measured the tree it was at 185 feet. And I could tell when I was up there, like “this is a really tall tree.”
It was memorable only in that the cat was a little bit surly and the tree was extremely tall, for getting a cat out.
Miller: You went up 185 feet?
Otto: Yeah, I even measured it with my rope. This has got to be one of our record highest trees for getting a cat down. So I pulled my rope up, tied a knot and measured it when I got to the ground. I was like, that is at least 185 [feet].
Miller: And to be clear, neither of you charge for these services, right? Tom, you’re a nonprofit, and Rick, if they want to they can pay, but they don’t have to.
Bunch: Correct.
Otto: That’s correct. Yeah.
Miller: Rick, what about you? What’s a memorable rescue that comes to mind now? And maybe you two have done a ton of them, but what stands out?
Bunch: I’ve done around 700 in the last 10 years. The memorable ones, we’ve seen cats for a week-and-a-half, even two weeks. I’ve seen some pretty skinny cats, so that’s nice to actually be able to help with those ones. But there was one, I carry a chip scanner and they didn’t know whose cat it was, but it turned out the cat had a chip and then it turned out that the cat had been missing for over a year. It had been found miles from home. And then later, I got a really sweet picture of a young girl with her cat reunited, so it’s pretty sweet.
Miller: Why do you do this? This is volunteer work. Rick, what keeps you doing this?
Bunch: I’ve always loved climbing trees and I love cats. It’s fun. It’s a great way to see parts of the state that I don’t get to and meet a lot of cool folks, keeps me in shape. I’m good at it, it’s fun. It’s not for everybody, so it’s kind of a good niche for me.
Miller: Tom, what about you?
Otto: Oh boy, that’s a tough question. It comes down to finding purpose, doing something that you’re good at, like Rick said. And then helping animals. These animals show unconditional love to their owners. And people are just pretty distraught, it’s hard when you hear your cat crying up in a tree. So being able to help people and help animals, I mean it’s pretty awesome. Like Rick said, it’s not for everyone. It’s not always easy, and it’s not always full of good feels and stuff. But it is a lot of fun. And it feels great to help people.
Miller: Tom and Rick, thanks very much.
Otto: Thanks.
Bunch: Thanks, Dave.
Miller: Tom Otto is an arborist, the co-founder of Canopy Cat Rescue, which is based in Washington. Rick Bunch, also an arborist, created 503 Cat in a Tree.
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