GRIEF: Manuel Cabrera and Lourdes Castro (above) mourn yesterday over cousin Marcial Rios-Aguilar, who died trying to save a stray cat.
RIOS-AGUILARLoved animals.
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A big-hearted animal lover tried to rescue a stranded cat from a tree in The Bronx yesterday morning — and wound up falling to his death, authorities said.
Marcial Rios-Aguilar, 53, first spotted the mewing cat while walking down the street at Allerton Avenue and Bronx Park East at around 3 a.m., officials said.
The Mexican immigrant apparently looped a rope around a high branch on the tree to hoist himself the more than 25 feet to where the cat was stuck.
But the branch snapped and Rios-Aguilar fell onto the concrete, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at the scene — near where the thin red rope was found.
“He loved animals,” said the victim’s grieving cousin Manuel Cabrera, with whom Rios-Aguilar lived along with Cabrera’s wife and three daughters. “He saw cats on the street, and he’d buy food and give it to the cats.”
Relatives said the unemployed clothing-factory worker often went around collecting cans and bottles to recycle for cash, sending the money back to his elderly mother in Mexico.
“He never tells where he’s going to go,” Cabrea noted. “He does what he wants to do.”
Cabrea said his cousin had four pets: two turtles and two birds.
The black-and-gray-striped cat that Rios-Aguilar had tried to aid was removed from the tree by firefighters from the FDNY’s Ladder Co. 41 about nine hours after his death. It had no collar.
At one point before its rescue, the creature climbed to the very top of the tree to avoid the workers.
Rios-Aguilar’s family was offered the 6-month-old male tiger cat, but they said they didn’t want it.
One city Parks Department employee at the scene sadly questioned why anyone tried to rescue the kitty at all.
“Cats come down on their own,” the worker said. “I’ve never seen a dead cat in a tree in my life.”
The cat was handed over to Animal Care & Control of NYC, which was planning to neuter it before putting it up for adoption.
The animal will be called Smokey for his color and because he was rescued by firefighters said the AC&C’s Austin Scarlett.
Scarlett said the agency would not euthanize the animal.
“Someone died trying to rescue that cat — you can’t let him die in vain,” Scarlett said.
Cabrera said Rios-Aguilar had spent the day before his death making food for the family, watching soccer teams from Mexico and playing with their girls. He left the apartment at about 11 p.m., the cousin said.
Rios-Aguilar came to New York from Mexico about 20 years ago and had long lived in the family’s apartment, which is about two miles from Bronx Park, where the cat was stranded.
Family members and neighbors set up makeshift memorials in the apartment building and near the tree where he died.
A cross made out of dirt had been left on the walkway where Rios-Aguilar fell. Traces of his blood were still visible in the debris on the path.
Cabrea said a nephew in Mexico was headed to New York to bring Rios-Aguilar back to be buried back home.