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Along the canals of Amersfoort in the Netherlands are hundreds of little wooden staircases leading out of the water and onto the banks. <\/p>\n
These special steps were installed as part of an initiative to protect wildlife that sometimes falls into the water and cannot climb out because of the high sides.<\/p>\n
Now, Amsterdam is looking to create similar escape routes for its small creatures. <\/p>\n
So far this year, 19 cats have drowned in the city\u2019s canals, a statistic that has prompted local pro-animal party PvdD to propose taking a leaf from Amersfoot\u2019s book. <\/p>\n
Now, Amsterdam councillors have voted to earmark \u20ac100,000 to make the waterways safer for animals.<\/p>\n
Amsterdam to install canal escape routes for cats<\/p>\n
In June this year, Amersfoort, in the province of Utrecht, announced it was installing 300 exit ladders along its waterways to help prevent wildlife from drowning. <\/p>\n
Now, Amsterdam has agreed to ask the animal welfare organisation Dierenambulance to identify where cats<\/strong><\/a> and other creatures are most frequently unable to escape from the water along its canals. <\/p>\n The council will use this information to select sites for the new escape routes. <\/p>\n According to the Dutch news site Parool, the city\u2019s animal welfare<\/strong><\/a> chief Zita Pels was already in favour of a project like this, but abandoned the idea because of a lack of funds. <\/p>\n The PvdD, however, highlighted that there is an unused \u20ac100,000 in her budget reserved for so-called \u2018wildlife<\/strong><\/a> exit points\u2019, allowing the scheme to get the go-ahead.<\/p>\n 14 people die a year in Amsterdam\u2019s canals<\/p>\n Cats can accidentally fall into canals when they get startled, Maggie Ruitenberg from the feline information centre Katten Kenniscentrum told Dutch daily Volkskrant.<\/p>\n Although cats<\/strong><\/a> are able to swim, they get exhausted quickly because their fur is weighed down by the water. \u201cA ladder can really save their life<\/strong><\/a>, as long as there are enough of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Official figures also show that around 14 people a year drown in Amsterdam\u2019s canals by accident. <\/p>\n Between 2014 and 2024, 142 people died in the city\u2019s waterways, many of them foreign tourists who fell in when drunk or under the influence of drugs.<\/p>\n In some places in the city, renovated canals have been fitted with special ledges that people can hold on to if they find themselves struggling to get out of the water. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT Along the canals of Amersfoort in the Netherlands are hundreds of little wooden staircases leading out of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":97273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49665,57827,4653,6576,8152,159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-97272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-amsterdam","9":"tag-canal","10":"tag-cats","11":"tag-netherlands","12":"tag-safety","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114926426085044768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}