Neighbours, strangers pitch in to rescue Whitehorse cat in tree

A Whitehorse cat was lowered safely to the ground by experts Thursday morning after being stuck in a tree.

Leilah Cross says she was out for a walk in the Takhini subdivision Tuesday when she noticed the cat in the tree and couldn't put it out of her mind.

A city bylaw officer responded to a request for help, but told her the location of the tree on a slope made the cat difficult to retrieve.

"We were out there all day yesterday, a couple of other groups of people had come and tried to get him out of the tree with no success and again he spent another sad, lonely night up there,"  said Cross. 

Cross put out a plea on Facebook and waited for a response. It came from O'Riordan and Champs Tree Service. Yukon Energy had also received a call from a friend of the cat owner asking for help.

"I went and checked him first thing this morning and he was still there," she said.

"So we were hopeful that then the guys who agreed to come, Mike and Arlo had agreed to come, would try and get him down. We had no idea that Yukon Energy was going to be involved until we got there and it was really lovely to see them there," she said.

"We were all really excited and knew that the cat was going to get down for sure then," said Cross.

Sheri Lynne Lintick witnessed the rescue Thursday morning.

"It was very exciting, I think the guys were a little nervous, they were scared they wouldn't be able to get it down or that maybe the cat would fall out as they were going up," she said.

Lintick said it was a tricky operation because the cat kept going up as one of the rescuers climbed the tree.

She said they eventually cut the tree and gradually lowered it to the ground using a rope attached to another tree.

Lintick said they've learned the cat's owner is out of town. The cat sitter told them the cat had been missing for five days.