The idea is simple but helps a lot. 🍋

One of the cities known for a lot of canals. Besides Bangkok, there must be Amsterdam, the Netherlands on the list. The canals are very beautiful, and they are a symbol of the city, and they are considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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But this beauty has another side, because over the years, the city has organized and improved the landscape along the canal to look clean. Many of the edges of the banks have been made into steep concrete walls. Look clean, it looks neat. But the problem is that if an accident falls, it is very difficult to rise.

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For people, there are still strong islands or help, but with little animals like "cats," there is almost no way. In the first seven months of 2025, 19 cats in Amsterdam have reportedly drowned in canals because they fell and couldn't climb back to shore.

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This led local animal rights-supporting political parties like PvdD to propose a simple but lifesaving idea: to install a "tiny staircase" along the canal so that fallen animals could swim to the island and climb back up.

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The idea was inspired by the city of Amersfort, which installed hundreds of small wooden staircases along the canal. In June 2025, the city installed 300 additional points to save waterfall wildlife from ending their lives in the canal.

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Amsterdam itself began to move along, with the city council approving a budget of €100,000 to make the canal safer for animals, and tasked the Dierenambulance organization to explore where it was most vulnerable to install ladders to help.

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Cat experts explain that even though cats can swim, when they get wet, their body weight increases very quickly, and they are easily exhausted, so a small staircase like this is an important way to survive.

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In the end, the "tiny staircase" may seem small, but it reduces losses a lot and makes a beautiful city a better place for all life.

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Source: euronews