"Adam"-- The Kitty Who MIssed Christmas

Details

It was about 10:30 on the day after Christmas, and I was getting ready to watch the Mississippi State bowl game when the Kat Fone yowled. It was Katherine from Florence MS, her daughter's kitty had been stuck in a tree for 4 days, could I help? I said that I could, and told Katherine that I would be there in about 3 hours. On the drive down, I listened to the bowl game and hoped that the rescue would be easy.

When I arrived, Katherine showed me the tree, a hardwood. "Adam" was about 35 feet up, perched in a wide crotch. He was crying and seemed friendly, and I thought this would be an easy rescue. I shot my climbing line towards a large union at 50 feet and hit it first try. As I was re-positioning my throwbag to better isolate it, the throwbag passed right by Adam and spooked him. He descended to the lower limb visible in the photo at the right, and then went all the way to the end, which was about 20 feet out from the trunk. Adam was also only about 20 feet off the ground at this point. There was no way that I could limb walk that far out, and Adam had already shown that he was skittish -- he would probably simply jump if I tried to limb walk. I was also concerned that Adam would run back to the trunk and go up the tree again while I was ascending to the limb. I told Katherine that the surest approach would be to shake Adam off the limb onto a tarp. I had Katherine and a friend hold a tarp under Adam's position, and I shot another throw line over the limb near Adam's position. One good tug and Adam fell off the limb -- unfortunately, he just missed landing in the tarp. The ground was soft and marshy however, and he bounced up and ran under the house. Katherine coaxed him out and he went inside for food and water. The picture below (courtesy of Katherine) shows Adam recovering from his ordeal. I checked with Katherine the next day, and Adam was doing fine. Annabella, Katherine's 7-year old daughter, was ecstatic that her kitty was safe. When I entered the truck after the rescue, I turned on the radio just in time to hear MSU block the other team's potential game winning field goal -- MSU wins! So, a good day all around!