A cat has been rescued after being found trapped under concrete steps at a school.

The feline was found under the steps at the Tanbridge House School in Horsham on Sunday night and the RSPCA was called and the West Sussex Fire and Rescue came out to help.

RSPCA animal collection officer Steve Wickham tried to get hold of the black and white female cat called Princess by leaning through the gap but eventually a firefighter managed to climb through and get the cat.

The tired and hungry cat was taken to a vet where she was treated for hunger and dehydration.

The vet had details of Princess’ owner who had registered her as being missing two weeks before, so the next morning Princess was reunited with her owner.

Mr Wickham said: “This poor little cat must have been very hungry being stuck under the steps. We are glad the fire brigade were able to help us and we got the cat out.”

After rescuing a cat that had been trapped in a Ninth Street sewer since Monday, a group of animal rescue advocates, neighborhood residents, and Bayonne city workers were puzzled yesterday when they heard meows coming from the same sewer moments later.

It turned out that another cat was trapped in the sewer along with the one so recently rescued. Hours later, rescuers lifted the second cat to safety.

“This one neighborhood is full of stray cats,” said Patty Mulligan, a Bayonne resident and a member of the Hudson County Animal League. “And it’s mating season. Males are running after females, and females are trying to run away from males, even if it’s in the sewer.”

Although they were confident that one of the cats was male and the other female, observers did not know which one was which.

Early yesterday afternoon, they rescued a tabby cat after using a tree-branch to prod it into running into one of two catch-nets that had been set up on both sides of the sewer pipe that runs from the main sewer line in the middle of the street to the curb, Mulligan said.

But shortly after being pulled to safety, the cat ran away. According to Mulligan, neither cat has an owner.

“There’s someone who feeds them, but they live on the street,” she said.

Minutes later, after hearing the meows of the second cat - a black cat that has since been nicknamed “Blackie” - the group learned that their work was not done.

The group set up traps on both ends of the sewer pipe where Blackie was.

Neighborhood residents set up surveillance of the area so that when Blackie finally ran into the trap - shortly after 6 p.m. yesterday - he was quickly pulled out of the sewer.

Though grateful that the situation had a happy ending, Mulligan bemoaned the lack of animal control programs in Bayonne.

“Unfortunately, Bayonne has neighborhoods that are plagued with stray cats,” she said. “There are not enough ‘trap-neuter-release’ programs to address this problem.”