Cat Rescue In Toms River Just Another Day In The Trees For Arborist

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Steven Murrow hoisted himself into the branches of a pitch pine on Sunday with one mission: Rescue Biscuit.

Biscuit, an orange tabby, had gotten himself into quite a predicament, climbing high into the tree in Toms River. The kitty, about a year old, couldn't figure out how to get back down however.

"He's been up there for three days," a woman tells Murrow in a video he shared of the rescue on the Facebook page for his company, Tesla Tree Service.

The video shows Murrow grab Biscuit and secure him in a bag for a trip back to the ground and to his grateful owners.

For Murrow, it was just another day in the trees — and just another cat rescue of more than 150 animal rescues he has performed since opening his tree service in 2022.

In fact, Murrow started his tree service in the first place as a result of rescuing cats.

"I was a contract climber for eight years for other tree companies," said Murrow, 42, who lives in Pitman. He had started helping people whose cats got stuck in trees while he was working for another company, grabbing his climbing gear to help save felines — at no charge.

Then he got contacted by the state of New Jersey, which told him that if he was going to advertise rescuing cats from trees — even at no charge — he needed to be licensed by the state.

So Murrow went through the licensing process and with that in hand, "I thought I might as well start my own business," he said.

Murrow started out working for a company that made high-end glass and metal structures all over the country, things such as glass walkways and elevators.

"I worked on Michael Bay's house," he said, referring to the Los Angeles mansion owned by the director of the Transformers movie.

Murrow also has a hobby as a rock climber, scaling rock formations in various mountains in the tri-state area, including at Lake George and in Pennsylvania for about a decade.

He found his way into climbing trees for a living out of happenstance and frustration with Mother Nature.

"I had a couple of oak trees on my property that were shedding limbs," Murrow said. The problem was every time a limb came down, it was taking out part of Murrow's vinyl fence, resulting in costly repairs.

"I got tired of replacing the fence," he said. After pricing the services of a tree company to remove the trees, Murrow reached out to some friends who worked on ground crews for tree services and asked them if they thought he could do the tree work himself.

Rescuing cats from trees is just something he does because he doesn't want to see the animals — or their human friends — suffer.

Tesla Tree Service is part of a worldwide network of tree services that rescue stuck cats. The Cat In A Tree Emergency Rescue website lists more than 100 companies across the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom that perform cat rescues.

Murrow's rescues are primarily within an hour or so of his home in Pitman, Gloucester County, but he has on occasion made trips as far as southern Delaware to help someone with their cat.

In 2022, he rescued 20 cats. In 2023, it was 39 and he logged 47 rescues in 2024 with a second climber who works for him, Joey, helping out, and they saved 54 animals in 2025, he said.

This year, they've made 12 rescues so far.

"We’re doing more than a rescue a week, which cuts into our business," Murrow said, and there are times people call him where he is able to refer them to tree services that are closer to them.

It's not always cats that people call on him to rescue.

"Hey, you're the cat rescue guy? I have a parrot that's in a tree," Murrow said the caller told him. Not just a parrot: a large macaw.

The bird could fly short distances, and had gotten itself stuck because it got startled and kept flying up higher into the tree, Murrow said.

The caller told Murrow that if he was able to get to the bird, it wouldn't fly away. "You can sweet-talk him and he'll climb onto your arm."

Murrow was skeptical, but gave it a try anyway, he said.

"When I got to him, he was dancing in the tree he was so excited," Murrow said, and just as the caller told him, the bird climbed onto his arm so he could return him to the safety of his home on the ground.

His rescuing devotion to cats might make you think he would have a bunch of felines. But Murrow and his wife, Stephanie, have only one: Baby, who he rescued from a tree about six months ago.

"I've been allergic to cats my entire life," Murrow said. "I'd have to take a Benedryl to go to my brother's house" and be around his brother's cats.

At the time he started rescuing cats from trees, he and Stephanie had a pair of aging mini dachshunds and didn't want to bring other animals into the home that might stress them.

Lily and Gustav passed away in 2025, he said. Not long after Gustav died, he got a call for a rescue in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.

The cat had been in a tree for five days, and was dehydrated and panting. When he got her down, he scanned her for a microchip — she didn't have one — then took her to their veterinarian, who said she was in good shape in spite of her tree ordeal

The plan had been to monitor the black cat at their home over the weekend and then work with a cat rescue to find her a home.

"We fell in love with her over the weekend," Murrow said.

Baby is part of the family now.

"She recently chose me at night," he said. "She sits on my lap to watch TV. But she sleeps on my wife's legs in our bed."

And his allergies have eased as he's gotten used to Baby's presence in the house.

Murrow said people offer to hire his tree service for work to thank him for rescuing cats, but he limits his tree work to much closer to home.

"I'm not doing tree work in Toms River," he said with a chuckle.

"If people want to give back they can donate to their local shelter or volunteer," he said.