Versatile VRA saves one of cat’s nine lives

The ‘V’ in VRA stands for ‘volunteer’ but it also stands for ‘versatile’.

VRA members are summoned to deal with many kinds of situations, more often than not very serious incidents.

On Monday the squad was called out for a rescue mission: a kitten was stranded about 15 metres up a tree in Narrabri’s Big Sky Caravan Park.

“I saw people looking up at the tree as they walked past from the Violet Street bridge on Monday morning” said caravan park manager Gareth Williams.

Closer inspection revealed they were looking at a kitten which had worked its way up and as the day wore on continued to climb ever higher until it was apparently wedged in a fork.

The VRA was called and captain John Hardgrave and deputy captains Harvey Black and Chris Silver responded.

The challenge was to recover the kitten from a branch which extended awkwardly out across the caravan park fence.

The best remedy was to bring tree branch and kitten to the ground which was successfully done.

An interested passerby had been watching the hour long proceedings and when the kitten reached the ground offered to give it a home.