Chrissy
How am I supposed to rescue a skittish cat at the top of a dead tree? That was the problem I faced when I was called out to Watson, Louisiana to rescue Chrissy, a one-year-old calico who had been stuck in the tree for one night. Chrissy was 40 feet high on the only remaining limb at the top of a dead tree whose top had broken off. Much of the bark was missing and the exposed wood was clearly rotting. The usu al way to rescue a cat in a tree is to climb the tree, but this tree was dead and unsafe to climb, so what can I do? Of course, the simplest option is to use a bucket truck, but I don't have a bucket truck, and even if one were available, it was not clear if it could get close enough to reach the dead tree, and it would have to park in the road where it would be blocking traffic in both directions. Another option is to install a "highline," that is, a long rope pulled very tightly between two taller trees on opposite sides of the dead tree and attach my rope to the ...