Rock Climbers Rescue Cat Treed 5 Days with Pellet in Head

Kevin Medin was concerned when he heard meowing up in the treetops. When five days passed and calls to the fire department, local animal and wildlife control agencies, and arborists, brought no help a pair of rock climbers went up a tall tree to bring down a cat. She was later discovered to have been shot by a pellet but is expected to be fine and go to a new home.

Aspen Gardens, Edmonton AB resident Kevin Medin heard plaintive meows coming from the trees when he went into his backyard one day late last month. He followed the sounds to a tree on a steep slope of  nearby Whitemud Ravine, where a cat was stuck in the treetop. The resident and his neighbors did what we all might have done to try to coax, cajole and lure her down, to no avail. They found her cries heartwrenching.

Mr. Medlin describes the cat as being small but quite the talker and says she talked to him for five long days before going quiet, at which point he feared for the worst.  All of the specialists who would not come had said the same thing: wait and she will come down, so Mr. Medlin and his concerned neighbors had waited and waited. When they no longer heard from the cat Mr. Medlin called another neighbor, who owns Vertically Inclined Rock Gym, a facility that offers recreational climbing courses, in a last ditch attempt to find someone to make the rescue.

The Rock Gym’s Jason Day (top, right) and Zakk Krudys (top, left) came out and set to work. Mr. Day stayed below on the ground as the spotter, anchoring and guiding the ropes, while Mr. Krudys made the climb.  As the climbr neared the tree top he found he could go no farther but the tortie cat was still way beyond reach. Fortunately, she came down to him, moving gingerly downward from branch to branch, and he put her in his backpack and climbed down. Cat saved.

Kevin Medlin pointing to the tree where the cat stayed for five days calling for help.

The second part of this cat’s story comes when the vet she was taken to determined that she had been shot in the head by a pellet gun, probably at point black, and she had a pellet lodged in her skull. She was further determined to be between 6 and 8 months old. The Westbrook Valley Clinic staff will spay her and remove the pellet on Thursday and then the beautiful young tortie kitty will become available for adoption. The clinic is absorbing the cost of treatment for now but says it will charge kitty’s adopter $500 to help cover costs.

The Aspen Gardens Community League is accepting donations to cover those costs and to try to help the little cat they came to care for find her loving forever home.

Mr. Medlin says of the little cat he would not give up on:

“It was such a triumphant ending. She had such a will to live. All we need now is to get her the great home she deserves.”

Sources: Edmonton Journal and Vancouver Sun

Karen Harrison Binette

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