Australians urge electric company to shut down power to save kitten

June 8 (UPI) -- Residents in an Australian neighborhood urged a local electric company to shut down power in order to rescue a kitten stuck on top of an electrical pole.

Canberra Pet Rescue wrote a Facebook post on Wednesday urging ActewAGL to shut down power to allow fire crews to rescue a kitten named Ash stranded at the top of a power pole in Canberra after the company initially refused.

"We have contacted everyone imaginable and no one can help unless ACTEW turn off the power!" Canberra Pet Rescue wrote. "This kitten isn't going to survive much longer up there...his owners are quite distraught."

ActewAGL confirmed to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation it received a call from a resident informing the company their dog had chased a cat up an electrical pole.

"When the kitten didn't come down the resident contacted ActewAGL for assistance in rescuing their cat," branch manager Clinton McAlister said.

By about 9:30 p.m. several people commented on an ActewAGL Facebook post, pleading with the power company to temporarily shut down electricity in the area to allow the kitten to be rescued.

Canberra Pet Rescue later shared an update on the situation, announcing an ActewAGL employee had arrived at the scene and was waiting for his team to join him.

By 10 p.m. Ash the kitten had been rescued from the top of the pole and reunited with her owners after ActewAGL agreed to briefly shut down power to the area.

"We had to isolate the power to a number of customers in the immediate area," McAlister said. "The rescue was safely performed by ActewAGL staff and the power was restored within the hour."

Canberra Pet Rescue said about 10 houses lost power for approximately 20 minutes, but said the damage may have been worse if the kitten had fallen and damaged the power lines.

"If the kitten had collapsed from dehydration or hypothermia and hit two lines on her way down it would've caused an outage for a far longer duration where ACTEW would've had to come out and get her body off the lines and get the power back on," the rescue group said.