Overview

• A passerby reported a lifeless cat in a birch on Kirchenhang in Hamburg-Eißendorf at around 10:35 a.m., triggering a multi-unit fire response
• Crews from Feuerwehr Harburg were unable to set up their Drehleiter aerial ladder due to unstable ground and called in the Höhenrettung specialists
• A heights rescuer at about 15 meters confirmed the animal was a raccoon rather than a cat and deemed it unharmed in its natural habitat
• Firefighters’ attempts to rouse or reach the raccoon failed as the animal climbed deeper into the canopy and escaped before they could intervene
• The initial Hamburger Abendblatt report was republished by MOPO and Stern with slight differences in tree height and retrieval attempts, highlighting routine urban wildlife misidentifications and operational constraints