Northwest feline rescuers debuting in Animal Planet series

Two feline-friendly Seattle tree climbers will become television stars in May.

Shaun Sears and Tom Otto, step-brothers who run the nonprofit Canopy Cat Rescue in Seattle, will debut in a new Animal Planet series, “Treetop Cat Rescue,” May 30.

The certified arborists have been scaling trees over the past two years to rescue stranded cats. Since they began, the two have scaled trees as tall as 15 stories. They have rescued nearly 500 cats.

“One of the biggest, rewarding things for me is you get the cat in the tree and the cat’s shivering, cold and you can feel it go from shivering to purring in a couple minutes,” Shaun previously told KIRO Radio’s Rachel Belle. “You feel that and that definitely makes it worth it for me.”

The brothers are always on call. They get requests around the clock from worried pet owners who find their cats stuck in trees.

“We use a big slingshot called a Big Shot and we shoot a line up into the tree and via that line we pull up a climbing rope. We climb up that and then access the tree as high as we can and then swing on over to the kitty,” Sears explained.

Shaun and Tom aren’t full-time cat rescuers, however. Shaun is a mountain guide on Mount Rainier and both do wildlife camera work with Department of Fish and Wildlife, and other agencies, and have worked as climbing arborists.

Viewers of the show will get a chance to see Sears and Otto in action, starting with the double-episode series premiere. The show starts at 9 p.m.