Blog editor's note: This story might sound familiar, but it's a DIFFERENT cat, and this one still needs help to get down out of the tree. And the tree is taller. (The cat stuck in a tree last week was rescued by Brian Wike of Dallastown, also known as "Brian the Tree Guy," who was considering adopting the cat, last I heard.)

By MIKE HOOVER
Daily Record/Sunday News

Tinkerbell is stuck.

About four days ago, the orange, tiger-striped cat climbed a 100-foot oak tree at Zeigler Trailer Park in Lower Windsor Township.

Now, she can’t get down, leaving about 50 residents feeling helpless as she meows for help.

“She is screaming her head off. It is dehydrated and crying for help. It has attracted the whole darn park,” said resident Rebecca “Becky” Socash.

“Everyone in the park has tried to do something. They have tried climbing the tree. It is too high and too far up to get her.”

Tinkerbell has climbed so high up that she can no longer be seen, said the cat’s owner, Allison March.

March bought Tinkerbell at a pet store about a year ago for her little girls: Nikita, 4, and Jaden, 3. The girls do not know the cat is missing.

“I don’t want them to see the cat in the tree. My daughters would freak out. I don’t want them crying. It breaks my heart,” she said.

March said her boyfriend and another man tried to rescue Tinkerbell.

“I don’t want them falling and busting their legs or falling and killing themselves,” March said.

March called 911 and was told fire companies no longer get cats out of trees.

She asked Lower Windsor Township Police and the Craley and Leo Fire departments for help.

Lower Windsor Township Police Chief David Sterner suggested calling a tree service.

It is not safe for police to go up a tree for a cat, and fire departments are concerned about the liability, Sterner said.

Someone could get bitten and fall out of the tree or get rabies, he said.

“I feel bad. But we just can’t be climbing trees for every cat that goes up a tree. We don’t want to be a bad guy with this. But it is not a police issue,” Sterner said.

Leo Fire Chief David Stump said he has not been contacted about Tinkerbell. In his 20-plus years in fire services, he said, he has helped rescue a handful of cats from trees.

If contacted, he said, he might send someone to evaluate if the fire company can help.

Firefighters answer all kinds of calls, including animal rescues, Stump said. Just last week, he rescued six ducklings from a storm drain in the Dairyland Square in Red Lion.

Sterner and Stump said the cat will eventually find its way out of the tree.

“Sooner or later, when the cat gets hungry enough, the cat will come down,” Sterner said.

“I have never seen a cat skeleton in a tree.”

Blog editor's note #2: While cats usually do come down, if the cat has been up there for days, it's already quite hungry and it's not likely to find its way down without help.

Cats are prone to hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) when they don't eat for several days. Lacking food, the cat's body starts sending fat cells to the liver to process into lipoproteins for fuel. Cats' livers are not terribly efficient at processing fat, and much of the fat is stored in the liver cells. Left untreated, eventually the liver fails and the cat dies.

In cases where cats have starved to death before figuring out how to come down, there wouldn't be skeletons in trees, because when the cat dies, it's no longer able to hold onto the tree.