BANGOR, Maine — A cat with a penchant for climbing a tree near the intersection of Garland and Grove streets over the past several days has drawn a lot of attention from passers-by and prompted Bangor firefighters to ask that residents call someone else.
Bangor fire Capt. John Prentiss said the Fire Department has taken more than a dozen calls in the past four or five days from people who have seen the cat in the tree. Some who have called in assumed the cat had been in the tree the whole time, according to Bangor police Sgt. Paul Edwards.
However, Prentiss said Tuesday morning that the cat has been pulled out of the tree more than once over the past few days but keeps returning. Edwards said the Police Department has received at least three calls about the cat.
Prentiss said the Fire Department isn’t the best place to report the chronic climber.
For the past couple of years, Prentiss said, it has been the Fire Department’s policy not to respond to reports of a cat up a tree.
“We honestly were starting to get so many calls … it was tying up our resources,” Prentiss said, adding that the Fire Department usually refers cat-related calls to another agency.
“Anytime someone calls here, we ask them to call either the Bangor Humane Society or the Bangor animal control officer.”
Simple problem, simple answer. Get animal control to get the cat down. Take said cat to animal shelter. Bill owners.
animal control could or would not do anything, and we have no idea whose cat it was,always not as easy as you think, especially in this city
bling cat to me…taste like chicken !
I like cats and have one myself, but do not let it roam. Cats are nature’s little killing machines. They kill for sport, not food. They decimate wildlife. In my area, we are overun by cats, none of which are wearing collars.
One cat up in a tree generates a dozen or so calls- many more people sleeping on the cold ground-How many calls from the public?
Where are the people sleeping on the cold ground? More hyperboli from no nothing do nothings. I can promise you that I would call the cops if I saw some bums sleeping on the ground in my neighborhood.
And I promise you they wouldn’t do much about it.
Open your eyes
What makes you so sure that they are ‘bums’? Have you ever helped a ‘bum’ up to take him/her to find shelter?…hot cup of coffee ….phone call…..ride home……a kind word…..gloves or mittens….etc
Transient a feel better word for you? I have helped one get shelter, after I caught him breaking into my car the shelter was a jail cell.
If you are concerned take these people in on cold nights.
I have never seen a cat skeleton up in a tree. It will come down.
Unfortunately, I had a cat skeleton in a tree on my property last spring!! It does happen. Here’s how: Yes, the neighbor’s cat was up the tree. It did indeed come down on it’s own.
It apparently slid/skidded it’s way down and became lodged in a crotch of the tree. It was a truly gruesome find, front feet stretched way out,back feet likewise,unable to get a toenail dug in to rescue itself…….It does happen.Sad stuff.
But that cat no longer climbs trees anymore.
pure ignorance
Gee thanks that made my night.
such a sad story but glad you shared it, i have never ever in my 50yrs heard of so many ignorant people in this world and we wonder why this place is like it is,again thank you for sharing jessiebud
How many cats that climb trees die from a fall or starvation?
Anyway – I had one that was always getting in trees and on roofs. If you could get a laundry basket with a few soft towels close enough he would jump in. Most times I only needed a patio chair to stand on. He stopped doing it by the time he was 2 years old. After that he only climbed things he could get down from. Sometimes his descent was far from graceful and he would be stumbling around for an hour or so.
“We don’t go get them,” Assistant Chief Vance Tripp said Sunday
afternoon. “Cats will come down out of the trees eventually. You don’t
see any skeletons of cats up in trees.”
Vance Tripp ~~~~~~Bangor Fire Department 1995.
I think that a former Bangor Fire Chief made national headlines saying that in the 80’s can’t recall his name though.
My cat stays indoors because of the coyotes that come into our backyard. She would be SAFER up a tree if outside.
I’ve always kept my cats inside. I don’t want them to become lunch for a coyote or fisher, etc. Plus I don’t want them to get into a tangle with some disease ridden alley cat or get run over.
Ya know whats sad. A cat can be in a tree for hours and 50 people call for assistance. but a child can be abused for years and not a word from anyone!
Isn’t that truth! Good call on that one Brian! :D
owner’s should keep it inside or be billed. what goes up will come down one way or another.
Is the tree on fire? Then don’t call the fire department.
*forehead smack*
ignorance
not really. the fire department has better things to do than pull your cat out of a tree. if, however, they do have to waste their time on it, the cat is roaming with no collar or tags, take it to the animal shelter. If it has a collar, take it to the owners and charge them the full cost of having to ‘rescue’ their cat.
Well here’s a little education.
emergency (n) – Bing Dictionary
e·mer·gen·cy [ i múrjənssee ] sudden crisis requiring action: an unexpected and sudden event that must be dealt with urgentlyused in emergency: used or suitable for use in an emergencyfor immediate treatment: requiring, providing, or given immediate medical attentionfire department
Definition
fire de·part·ment
fire de·part·ments
Plural
NOUN
1.
firefighting
organization: an organization of people trained to
prevent, control, and extinguish fires and to rescue people from fires and other
dangerous situations
Father in law had a couple of Peacocks that would sit on the roof for days. Drove him nuts. And yes, they can fly, not all that well but they can get up there.
cats are perfectly able to get themselves out of trees-if you continue to rescue them,it becomes a game to them,and they will continue to climb the tree.I agree-call animal control,or let it stay there til they get cold and/or hungry…
so you mean that you are ok watching a cat get weaker and weaker by the minute,by the hour,by the day, read my post at the bottom if you want the truth
“However, Prentiss said Tuesday morning that the cat has been pulled out of the tree more than once over the past few days but keeps returning. Edwards said the police department has received at least three calls about the cat.”
But we have cops come out and put the bad guys in jail, but they some how keep getting out, then we gotta call them again and have them put that person back in…that ties up resources too
cut the tree down.
I want to clear a bit of this story up. I live in the building next to the parking lot the tree is in. I watched that cat for five days. When Capt. John Prentiss says the cat was removed from the tree and re-climbed it several times, he is simply mistaken. Wednesday night, the cat first climbed the tree. My neighbors and I noticed it on Thursday. That same day, my neighbors tried to get the cat down. They failed, and it got scared and climbed higher. They called the Fire Dept. and Animal Control on Friday – and the cat was not removed from the tree. He was still up there all day Saturday and Sunday (when someone tried to get him down and failed). On Monday, a group of guys finally succeeded. Every day, I would see the cat in the tree in the morning. I could see him from my kitchen window whenever I looked out. My roommate could hear him crying throughout the day. Each night, he was still there. Unless he was in two places at once, that cat was absolutely in the tree for five straight days.
Who does the cat belong to?
If i may reply semloh, we have no idea who the cat belonged to
So when it is retrieved from the tree, it should be taken to the local shelter.
it was taken immediately to the vets where it is being treated and if it survives one of the men who rescued it is going to adopt it and provide the home it should of had, no cat of this description had been missing no posters anywhere, all the neighbors from all around had no idea
Yo mama .
thank you Ian you would think they would have talked with us, the people who reported it and lived beside it
Maybe that cat is after the squirrels that get in your house and chew the wiring and cause the fires that are of “unknown origin”.
How about turn the TV off in the fire station so these guys will go out and do some public service rather than sitting on there behinds watching Ellen. We pay for their service or have they forgot that? Would do some good to get the trucks out and put a few miles on them plus give those guys a little driver training at the same time.
How about taking a minute to think before you comment. What do you think it costs the taxpayers to run the fire truck to get a cat out of a tree, that the owners should be taking care of. If the cat will not stop climbing, keep it inside. Does the term Emergency Services mean anything to you?
Unfortunately they get enough of that sort of training going after the welfare crowd every time they get a hangnail or bellyache. Listen to the scanner sometime, you will be shocked what rescue gets called for on a daily basis. It is sickening to hear these resources being used as a taxi service to the “free” medical services of the emergency room.
wish i could like this comment a million times wileyes
my taxes are high enough already
And for what they sit around all day doing nothing. I have been to the station sevel times and most of them are walking around doing nothing.
True but at least they risk their life once in while on their 3 on 5 off schedule unlike the public works crew I saw yesterday one was holding a flame throw er the other was holding the rubber hose behind him while leaning on the truck and 6 more stood behind the truck doing nothing
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I heard a real thigh slapper once. It went like this: You never saw a cat skeleton up a tree.
I swear, it was funny……I must be telling it wrong….
Cats love to climb trees, but are bad at getting down. The only one of the many I’ve had over the years was a three legged cat (one front) we had when I was a kid. She would climb a ladder against the back of the house, sit on the two story peak of the roof for hours, then come back down that ladder at will!
Call Roxann Q. the tree hugger. She can start a cat park!
Time for a policy change either start gouging money from cat owners as they do us dog owners by making them buy a license and use that money for this. My perfect idea would be to bill the owner for the time and use of equipment including fuel I bet they would never call more then one time.
I live in the counrty and don’t let my cats out,but sometimes when company is here they do manage to bolt out the door. One of my cats escaped over 2 years ago and was spotted across the road where we used to live this past Christmas eve. After lots of coaxing him with food he is back with us. I also had a cat that got out and was missing for 3 days. One night while sitting on my back deck,I saw eyes up in a tree and called my cat’s name and he started crying. My boyfriend had to get a ladder,climb the tree and finally got him down. I don’t think he would have come down on his own.
Well I would like to state the TRUTH,something the BDN should have found out before they posted this article.
My husband and myself found this cat in the tree right beside our house on wednesday evening the 15th, at that time i called bangor dispatch to see what could be done,to which i was told and i quote “the cat got up the cat can get down”, so that night we tried what we could but could not get the cat down, thursday,friday and the weekend i called,bangor dispatch again which told me to call animal control to which they said they could do nothing to which i replied what do you do then beside ride around in a truck,i called dispatch again to which the woman told me they could not come over because it was a risk to have them at my house in case a call came in,to which i replied but it is ok to have the fire truck in front of a hannaford store 3 to 4 times a week while 3 or 4 firefighters go inside to shop and are having a great time doing it,i know this because i worked there for 5yrs,no response from her,i call local tree services in the area leaving messages with everyone,no calls returned,i called all the local tv stations,WVII,WABI,and WLBZ no one ever got back to me, so in the mean time this cat was stuck in this 40ft tree,wednesday,thursday,friday,sat,sun and mon through freezing temps,rain,wind and snow flurries with no food or water. on friday the firedept showed up because apparently my call made it to city hall and to apease us they showed there face,only to tell us the ladder wouldn’t reach up there,so for all you who live in 3rd story apts beware,come monday we had a driveway full of people who had had enough,through FaceBook we finally got concerned citizens. We had 2 men who risked their lives to climb to the very top of this 40ft tree,who received some very nasty wounds and cuts but retrieved the cat at 4p.m which would have been his sixth night. As as you can see the truth is the cat never came down the tree only to go back up, the cat was up there the entire 6 days and 5 nights. I have encountered some truly ingnorant people through all this,it has been an eye opener. I feel bad for the teenagers who were here all fired up to get help to the cat and were counting on our city to help them out, one of those teenagers became one of the men who rescued the cat.
and like i said the IGNORANCE in people really shows at times like this, i prefer the KARMA way,sit back and wait it out and watch it roll
You can’t accuse people of ‘ignorance’ if they’re going by a news report in a local paper, and there will be no ‘karmic retribution’ for those who are going by what is most likely the only reliable source of information on the events. You sound like a fanatical Christian, except you’re screaming about ignorance and karma instead of about God.
“But,” you say, “I just told it like it happened!” Well, that’s all fine and dandy, and I’m sure that you’re telling the truth from your perspective, but how many people are going to scroll all the way down here to read this, and how many people are /going/ to read this after you’ve treated everyone like a five year old? Not many, I can assure you.
For every story with 10 people involved, you’re going to have 12 different views of the thing. Relax, stop throwing your little temper tantrum, and if you’re this offended by the whole thing get in touch with the newspaper, don’t take it out on the commenters.
A word to the wise, DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT YOU READ in the paper because this article is simply not true!
SO I guess my question is this story going to be retracted? I thought when reporting you were to get both sides of any storyget to the truth, seems no one even attempted to do this in this city,just like no one attempted to help, this does not look very good for the city of Bangor. I will never again read an article in the BDN and believe any of it. All they have to do is check my cell records and the call records of dispatch and animal control, the evidence is not hard to find
Thank you for everything you did!!!!! Must have been very frustrating watching that poor cat up in the tree so long. And thanks to the brave guys who went above and beyond to help the cat.
call BPD and tell them you suspect the cat has a quarter of a gram of crack cocaine attached to its collar and they will seen half the force to get the cat down.
Call BPD and tell them you suspect the cat has a quarter gram of crack cocaine attached to its collar and they will send half the force to get the cat out of the tree.