Of course, all the time. Fire department reminds routinely not to call them to take cat down; that’s not a service they provide.

I had a cat that at EVERY opportunity to go outside, she’d head straight up a tree & then she cried for me to get her down!!! The first couple of times I did get her down. Then I grew tired of her game. She climbed the tree…she could get back down & I walked away & went back in my house. Sure enough a little bit later, she was scratching on the door to get back inside. Trees used to be a cat’s scratching post. They don’t need them now, so they don’t climb as often.

Last Fall I helped my neighbor get her cat out of a huge Red Alder tree. We use my long extension ladder extended all the way. Two of us help the ladder at the base while my neighbor went to the top of the ladder and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck.

All the time. I have a cute bobcat that I watch at dusk that likes to perch in a tree on my property/

When i was young we lived in a house that had some mature fruit trees. The cat we had would occasionally climb there to hunt birds; he would never be more than 6 or 7 feet off the ground.

When we moved into a brand new development in California, the same cat would climb the fences and then jump onto the eaves of the house. It had no fear of heights.

My cat used to do that regularly, when he was still living in Greece.
Now, in the Netherlands, I have a 4 feet party of a tree, to sharpen his nails.
He climbs it to get to the ladder to watch outside (this all on the balcony).

He was very proficient at climbing in, and back down.

My cats have gone up in trees, several times they’ve gotten stuck.

I’ve seen cats stuck high up in trees too (thankfully none of mine have gotten stuck too high up).

People make jokes about it, like “have you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?” which they seem to think if a funny joke but it’s actually stupid. Of course there wouldn’t be a cat skeleton in a tree. If anything, the cat would starve and become dehydrated and suffer from hypothermia and fall from the tree and possibly break a leg or jaw and the skeleton would be at the bottom of the tree and deteriorate.

Many times. (Have never seen or heard of a cat skeleton in a tree.)
I once saw a cat on top of a 40’ tall telephone pole out in the Nevada desert, not one house in sight. 6 hours later it was gone.
My neighbor’s cat climbed a tree between our yards and was up there for 2½ days before her neighbor climbed up there and got it down.

Who do you think puts them there?

No cats but we had a raccoon crawl way up into the pine tree in the front of our house.
It got down by itself.

Yes. Sometimes they just like to perch. More than once I’ve seen a frightened cat run up a tree.

One of our pair of sibling cats (adults) got stuck in a neighbor’s tree just beyond our fence. She was yowing and crying. She couldn’t see that she had to go up a little and over a branch to get down. Her sister finally went up after her and coaxed her down by calling to her and showing her the way.

The same rescuer cat also performed a wild tree-splatting distraction just as my jet-powered two-year-old was about to run into the street. She charged down the driveway and scrambled up the trunk of the sycamore right beside it. He stopped to stare, and I caught up with him. I was heavily pregnant at the time.

Yes. Many times. Some of them do that. My first cat went up trees regularly. At first, she didn’t seem to be able to get down, so my I got to see my mom in a tree, going to get her down. Later, the cat would use the tree to get up to our bedroom windows to paw at the windows to get attention and food when we were sleeping.

Most cats can get down. As most firemen will tell you, consider whether you’ve ever seen a cat that starved up in a tree (pretty much no one has, because they can get down). Though some get scared at first, and may prefer to have a human come get them down. Some of those also get scared by humans climbing up to get them. Etc.

(Chickens and peacocks etc also go up and hang out in trees sometimes.)

@Zaku I specifically addressed the “dead cat in a tree” in my comment.

Some cats go so high up and they get scared, and they may come down on their own or they may need to be rescued by kind humans, but that might be after days of being stuck in the tree, with little sleep, no food, no water, and possibly cold temperatures and/or rain.

Not really. Vanta heads up there sometimes, but not for long. She gets herself down after 15 minutes.