Cecil said:
I thought the reason for calling the fire department was because they had access to tall ladders and such. So who was the idiot fireman that got a “rescue my cat” call and decided to take a pumper truck, not a ladder truck? Or was it a case of a -911 dispatcher not getting details, just “emergency call to xxx” and the firemen assumed it was a fire?
We adopted a cat so young we had to teach it everything from how to dig a hole in the sandbox to climbing a tree. Cats learn a great deal from their mothers and we had to be surrogates.
When he first climbed a tree and was stuck on the lowest limb, he could only jump or call for help. I taught him to reverse on the lowest limb, start climbing up the trunk until his body was vertical, then to back down. That worked, and he continued the technique with confidence from any height.
I suspect that a cat not trained by its mother may avoid climbing unless frightened, then go too high to jump and not know how to back down.
Cats damned sure do get stuck in trees and cannot or refuse to come down. It happened to me when I was young. An adopted cat ran out of the house and climbed a pine tree about 70 feet up on a rather feeble branch. It stayed up there for 4 or 5 days and was in obvious pain at that point and making lots of noise. We called the volunteer fire department and they came with a ladder truck and a bunch of volunteer firemen but their ladder couldn’t go up that high.
My father got sick of the failure to rescue it and went into the house and got a 30.06 rifle. He is an expert shot and planned to just blow the branch down with a shot from the rifle and have people catch it when it fell. He hit the branch and it did drop but the cat was hit by shrapnel and we all failed to catch it in the fall despite our best efforts. The cat sustained some wounds from the shrapnel but internal injuries from the fall. We took it to the vet right away but it died a few days later. I got the phone call from the vet and was quite upset but everyone did everything that could be done.
I am positive that it would have stayed up there long enough anyway to die from dehydration if nothing else if we didn’t try to get it down. The fire department tried their best but they didn’t have the equipment to handle that situation. In such a large country, I know that some fire department try their best to get down from trees. It isn’t like they have fires to fight 24 hours a day anyway and all the firemen I know like strange situations and being a hero for anything.
Some fire departments may be willing to rescue a cat from a tree, but they are not the best people to call in this type of situation. Nearly every tree service employs at least one full time tree climber. These guys spend the majority of their working day climbing trees to trim them or to remove the tree piecemeal from the top down. They are infinitely more comfortable and experienced with ascending and working in trees than any firefighter would be. Most of the climbers that I know have done at least a couple of cat rescues, and it’s typically no harder to handle a cat than a chainsaw while aloft.
If your cat is stuck in a tree, give it a day or two to find its own way down. If it doesn’t, you can either call tree services from the phone book and ask them if they are willing to help out or you can visit www.catinatreerescue.com which includes a directory of tree climbers who are experienced in and willing to go up a tree after your cat. Expect to pay for the service. Most of the guys I know will arrange to stop by after they are done with their regular day’s work and will bill you for at least an hour of their time, which doesn’t come cheap. However, many of them will donate their fee to a local animal shelter or the ASPCA.
I just wanted to say this is classic Cecil snark:
The podcast for this column was fun to listen to.
One might suggest that, if concern about pet safety is the issue, cat owners might keep them inside. That would help protect local wildlife from all these non-native predators, too. I care more about the birds in my trees than the cats that might get stuck while hunting them.
Anecdotal data points:
A couple of weeks ago, we saw the neighbor’s very young kitten climb a tree, and then get back down the tree again in reverse, using its rear claws straight out as though stepping down a ladder, while wrapping its front legs around the trunk as though shimmying.
Then, a couple of days ago, my wife saw the same kitten, a little bigger, and a little heavier, up the same tree. But this time, it was unable to back down below the lowest branch. It would go up easily, go down with increasing difficulty, and finally stop. Then it would go up again, and repeat the cycle. Finally, it climbed up to where it could jump up onto the roof of the house. Our neighbor then got its attention by dangling something shiny from a dormer window in the attic, and snatched the kitten when it got in reach.
I don’t have the link handy, but I read something recently that stated the higher a cat fell from, the more likely it was to survive, as it has longer to spread its body in readiness for impact. I don’t recall it mentioning exactly how it came to this conclusion, but for kitty owners, I’m sure it didn’t involve dropping them from various heights.
If it’s any use at all, I remember reading about this at the time. Of course I can’t provide a cite for it, but I do recall reading about it. I laughed - very bad of me, but it’s just one of those that is sad and sort of funny simultaneously. Of course, just because it was in the papers doesn’t prove it was true, I suppose. Ah, on preview, if you’re serious about the 20-25 years ago bit, then it sounds more doubtful as the incident I recall would have been in the 1970s.
And of course whether it lands the right way up depends on where you attach the buttered toast. 
The Master speaks as to cats’ ability to survive falls: Do cats always land unharmed on their feet, no matter how far they fall? - The Straight Dope
And behold the buttered cat paradox: Buttered cat paradox - Wikipedia
Treeclimber has it right. As a firefighter, I’ve rescued a few cats from trees, but now we pawn it off to Animal Control. We climb buildings like monkeys. Trees? Not so much.
Most departments don’t want to tie up Ladder Trucks on non-emergency situations. Extension ladders are unsafe for most tree climbing situations, and more to the point, putting a ladder anywhere near a stranded cat frequently scares the critter higher up the tree. Firefighters loathe nothing more than making a situation worse.
How does Animal Control handle it? I dunno, but I suspect the “skeleton in trees” argument comes into play. We do happily rescue cats from sewers and engine compartments though.
I too have pondered the problem of cats requiring rescue from trees. My thought processes mirrored your own, Cecil. I too wondered why evolution had not weeded out feline genes which might give rise to hazardous tree climbing.
However, I find that you have made a false assumption. You have taken it for granted that trees are just as they have always been. You have overlooked the possibility that the cat-tree problem might be caused by a recent change in the nature or nurture of trees with which the evolutionary process in cats has not caught up.
Here in Cheltenham, England, a visit to my local park provided evidence of the changing structure visited by Man upon several common varieties of tree. Studying one tree after another, examination of the bark repeatedly showed where a branch between one and five feet from the ground had been surgically removed by park staff in order that tree trunks should grow up in a stark verticality. One, two, or three scars in the bark testified to the interference by Man in the Natural Order.
And so I put it to you all: it is the absence of the “stepping stones” once provided by the lower limbs of trees that has confounded the cat. It is a mere whim of fashion that has led both to the disfigurement of trees and to its unhappy feline consequences.
Perhaps one involves an animal lodged in a place it shouldn’t be (Such as a cat in an engine compartment) and the other involves an animal lodging where it shouldn’t be (such as a deer in your dining room)?
As it’s mentioned, cats do very often get stuck in trees–they like the climb up, but very often spook themselves and freak out.
If Animal Planet is any indication, rescuing cats from trees is slowly becoming the job of various animal rescue groups, though they will call in ladder trucks if that’s determined to be necessary.
cmoose said:
[QUOTE]
I taught him to reverse on the lowest limb, start climbing up the trunk until his body was vertical, then to back down.QUOTE]
I’m curious how you did this.
You mean the firemen won’t rescue my kid if he got stuck in a tree?
Sure, but he’ll probably just shake the tree or use a fire hose to knock the kid out of the tree. 
I think the main reason why cats get stuck in trees now, and yet their ancestors managed to survive, is that domesticated animals, by and large, are stupid. Partly, this is a matter of them being bred to be more manageable to humans; partly, it’s a matter of brains not being necessary when you live with someone else to do the thinking for you; and partly it’s a matter of the animals often being raised away from their mothers who would otherwise give them a proper education. So a smart wild cat can remember what its mom taught it about how to get down out of trees, but a dumb domesticated either never learned in the first place, or couldn’t understand.
I doubt domestication has done much to make them dumber. There are plenty of ferals around in the population, and many “owned” cats spend lots of time unsupervised outside.
You may be more correct about the fact they are not fully trained by their mothers before being taken to new homes. Cats have a reputation for being loners, but they are really more social than most people give them credit for. I had a cat, as a kitten he couldn’t meow. He would give a quiet little cheep to get attention. We had another older cat around. When he started learning to meow, he was hilarious because he would take a breath, get ready, open his mouth wide, and … silence would come out. He would make all the motions, no noise. It was hilarious. He did eventually learn to meow, but was never the loudmouth other cats can be. (Our other cat was mostly siamese - she could belt out a pretty good meow when she wanted to.) I think he learned by watching and by trial and error.