Anderson Joshua@anderson_joshua

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Amsterdam cat escape stairs in canals

The walls of a canal are basically a dead end if you're small and wet. Amsterdam is doing something about that by fixing metal rungs onto those steep banks, giving cats and other little animals a route back up to solid ground. That's the whole trick: rungs, attached where the stone goes straight down. No redesign of the waterways, no big engineering statement. For an animal that's worn out and fighting cold water, though, having a few footholds within reach could be the thing that keeps a bad moment from turning into a worse one. Simple solutions like this tend to raise a question, which is how many other cities with canals are still leaving nothing to grab onto. Keeping wildlife safe doesn't always demand some grand invention. A bit of care and an actual way out can cover a lot of ground. Would you want to see these along more waterways?

1h

Anderson Joshua@anderson_joshua

Follow

Amsterdam cat escape stairs in canals

The walls of a canal are basically a dead end if you're small and wet. Amsterdam is doing something about that by fixing metal rungs onto those steep banks, giving cats and other little animals a route back up to solid ground. That's the whole trick: rungs, attached where the stone goes straight down. No redesign of the waterways, no big engineering statement. For an animal that's worn out and fighting cold water, though, having a few footholds within reach could be the thing that keeps a bad moment from turning into a worse one. Simple solutions like this tend to raise a question, which is how many other cities with canals are still leaving nothing to grab onto. Keeping wildlife safe doesn't always demand some grand invention. A bit of care and an actual way out can cover a lot of ground. Would you want to see these along more waterways?

1h