Florida: Man sues woman claiming her Bobcat attacked him; wildlife officer shows up and finds just a regular housecat

FLORIDA -- Christine Lee wants the world to know she does not own a bobcat.

She spent much of Thursday fending off phone calls from friends and news reporters who had learned of a lawsuit alleging she does.

The civil complaint claims a bobcat attacked a contractor who entered her home on the 18th floor of the Skypoint Condominiums in downtown Tampa.

That man, Marcos Hernandez, is suing Lee and the Skypoint Condominium Association for unspecified damages he says he suffered as a result of a creature clawing his arms, according to court and police records.

But the feline in question is not a bobcat, Lee demonstrated Thursday. Rather, Calli is a domestic long-haired cat with a fluffy mane of black, brown, blond and gray.

"How he could even think this was a bobcat, I don’t know," Lee said as she cuddled Calli. "He must not know cats."

Calli was a kitten when Lee rescued her from a salvage yard in Georgia about four years ago. She lives with Lee, her husband, Rex, and a black cat named Max.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The incident at the center of Hernandez’s civil complaint happened May 16. Hernandez visited the apartment to conduct a scheduled fire safety inspection, Lee said. He arrived about noon, earlier than she expected.

"All I know is he was in here alone and he must have startled her," Lee said.

Upon entering, Hernandez was scratched, he reported. Tampa police records state that he was bleeding and was taken to Tampa General Hospital.

Lee arrived home at 12:40 p.m., after Hernandez had left, she said.

Calli was near the front door. Max, who also looks nothing like a bobcat, was in a bedroom.

Condo rules require owners to be present when an inspection is conducted or cage their animals, Lee said. But she said she didn’t expect the inspection to occur until late afternoon. She was surprised upon her return to learn that Calli had attacked the man.

The next day, an employee with Hillsborough County’s Pet Resource Center visited and photographed Calli. Lee was cited for not having Calli’s rabies certification readily available, but she later produced it.

That was the end of it. Until the lawsuit.

A flurry of media reports Thursday brought Lee to tears. Calli hissed at a reporter who came to visit.

"I’m agitated, and she’s agitated," Lee said.

Among her visitors Thursday were officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A spokeswoman confirmed the agency was looking into the matter. Lee said they would put out a statement.

 

"They were like, ‘Really?’?" she said. "I said ‘You’re welcome to investigate the premises and see that I don’t have a bobcat.’"

Lee doesn’t know what to make of the lawsuit. She has yet to hire a lawyer.

"It’s not a wild animal," she said. "It’s just a cat."

She's lucky her cats didn't end up dead. This guy could've gotten mad, chased them around the condo, stomped them, beat them and killed them. 

If possible, never let anyone in your home when you're not home. And even when you're home, keep your pets closed off in a separate room until that person is gone. Of course, meter readers usually come during the day when everyone is at work so there's always a risk if your pets are where the meter is located... 



Texas: Homeowner calling for changes after Entergy worker pepper sprays her dogs



Iowa: Woman says repairman beat her small Poodle mix; prosecutors refuse to file animal cruelty charges




Texas: CenterPoint worker caught on tape taunting, then beating customers' dogs



North Carolina: Plumber is fired from PF Plumbing for viciously kicking client's dog in the face, but what about the coworker who saw it and never told his employer what this guy had done???



Texas: Entergy utilities employee caught on camera pepper spraying small dog


(Tampa Bay Times - January 4, 2018)

California: Injured bobcat rescued by California Highway Patrol officer near Martinez

CALIFORNIA -- A bobcat found with an injured leg by the side of the road near Martinez was rescued by the California Highway Patrol and taken to a wildlife hospital in Walnut Creek for treatment, according to CHP.

A passerby called the Highway Patrol shortly before 1:30 p.m. to report that an animal was injured on the side of the road along Cummings Skyway just east of Crockett Boulevard, in Crocket Hills Regional Park, CHP reported in a statement.

"Upon our arrival, the wildlife we found was a beautiful Bobcat that had injured its leg," the statement said. "Thankfully along with the help of Contra Costa Animal Services we were able to rescue this little fella and transport him to the Lindsay Wildlife Experience museum in Walnut Creek, where he will be cared for. Get well little guy!"

At the Lindsay Wildlife Experience, the big cat was receiving X-rays and medical treatment, according to Elisabeth Nardi, a spokeswoman for the hospital.

"We get maybe one a year — it's not too common," Nardi said. "Our main species are things like Virginia opossums, house finches, squirrels, all kinds of barn owls."

The bobcat is a lot bigger than those animals, obviously, so the Wildlife Experience can only house him or her for the short term, she said.

"We do not have a big enough facility to be able to house him or her for any long period of time," Nardi said, "so if he's doing OK, we will transport him to a partner organization that has a bigger facility."

(SFGate - August 29, 2017)

New York: Wildlife officer rescues bobcat kitten in Owego

NEW YORK -- It's not unusual to see a kitten saved by an officer, but it is if that baby is a wild bobcat.

That's exactly what happened in late June when the state Department of Environmental Conservation got a call about a bobcat kitten stuck in a drainage ditch in the Village of Owego.

DEC conservation officers Brent Wilson and Stanley Winnick were contacted by Tioga County 911 dispatch on June 23 regarding a bobcat kitten stuck in a drainage ditch in front of a residence.

When the officers arrived on the scene, an Owego police officer was already on hand, along with a group of children.

The person who located the bobcat and reported it runs a day care center out of her home, and she, along with the children, were concerned about the well-being of the animal, which had apparently sought shelter in a drain pipe for protection and gotten lodged.

Wilson and Winnick moved everyone away from the pipe and patiently waited for the bobcat to emerge. Eventually, it slowly crawled out, and Wilson caught the kitten after a quick chase.

Wilson placed the kitten in a safe storage compartment in his truck. A local wildlife rehabilitator happened to be nearby, setting a live trap for another bobcat kitten that had been abandoned.

Both kittens are doing well and will be released to the wild when they become self-sufficient, the DEC reported.

Follow Jeff Murray on Twitter @SGJeffMurray. 

Report a wildlife incident

To report nuisance wildlife or animals that are injured or distressed, contact your local DEC wildlife office.

In Region 7, which includes Tioga, Tompkins and Broome counties, call 607-753-3095, ext. 247. In Region 8, which includes Chemung, Schuyler and Steuben counties, call 585-226-5380 or 607-776-2165.

(Star Gazette - July 13, 2016)

Hungry bobcat, raccoon captured at Orono chicken coop

MAINE -- A couple of critters stopped by the home of a local TV meteorologist this week, but they did more than say “hi, Steve,” as so many of Steve McKay’s WLBZ viewers do.

Instead, a bobcat killed one of McKay’s chickens, and the Maine Warden Service was called.

After setting a pair of traps, Warden Jim Fahey said the bobcat — and its apparent partner in crime — were captured in live traps Wednesday morning.

“I had a chance [Tuesday] to set two traps, right adjacent to this chicken coop, and overnight we didn’t just catch the bobcat,” Fahey said. “We caught a raccoon as well.”

 

Fahey had a pretty good idea what to use for bait in order to catch the bobcat, he said.

“The chicken that it had dropped on Sunday evening was still in the trash, so I used that as bait,” Fahey said.

Fahey took the bobcat to Matt Ewing, an Orono man who is in the process of becoming a certified wildlife rehabilitator and planned on releasing the raccoon off County Road in Milford on Wednesday.

Cory Mosby, the furbearer and small mammal biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said the bobcat was a yearling, or sub-adult, born last year.

He said it’s understandable a small, young cat would have had a hard time surviving during this long Maine winter and would seek an easy meal at a chicken coop.

“If you think about it, if you’re an animal with small feet … deep snow makes it difficult and really hard to maneuver, especially as a predator,” Mosby said. “And when you combine that with these yearlings, or sub-adults, this is their first winter. Even in a good winter, this is the age class that you’d see the highest mortality.”

Mosby looked at the bobcat in the trap and clearly could see its pelvic bones protruding, which means it wasn’t getting enough food.

“When you lose fat and muscle, that’s usually a strong indicator that the animal is in poor condition,” Mosby said.

The cat was captured just outside the town center in Orono, on the river side of Route 2 between Pat’s Pizza and the state police barracks, Fahey said.

“In my experience, two things seem to trigger these bobcats to come into the settled areas,” Fahey said. “One is extended, bitter cold. I think if they miss a meal, they’re not really a good cold weather animal. They don’t have a lot of fat reserves, and that causes them to be hungry and to look for other food sources.”

Deep snow also causes problems, Fahey said.

“They have to hunt and kill to thrive, so if they miss meals due to poor hunting conditions, they’ll be hungry and then look for easy targets,” Fahey said.

Earlier this year, another bobcat was captured after frequenting a local chicken coop.

Ewing said it probably wouldn’t take long for the cat to rebound.

“I’ll just feed the heck out of him for the next couple of days, and when the conditions are good [I’ll release him],” Ewing said. “I don’t think he’ll have any trouble catching his own food. He just has to be forced to do it.”

Ewing said when he takes the bobcat to the release site on the other side of Orono from where it was captured, he’ll hide a beaver carcass nearby and cover it so other animals don’t find it. Then, after leaving the cat in the trap for a few hours, he’ll return, open the door and walk away. The cat, he says, will find the meat and have itself a meal shortly after its release.

“Then, a few days later, [I’ll remove] the cage,” Ewing said. “I’ve had good luck in the past with them staying in the area. [Putting some food out] just gives them one more advantage on their release, to make it out there on their own.”

(Bangor Daily News - April 8, 2015)

Rocky the bobcat has new, permanent home

NEW JERSEY -- Rocky, the hybrid bobcat who gained notoriety by continually breaking out of his home during the past year, has been given a life sentence at the Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey Township after his owner on Friday agreed to surrender him.

Ginny Fine agreed to relinquish ownership of the big feline at a hearing in municipal court before Superior Court Judge Damian Murray at which she pleaded guilty to again letting the pet run loose in Stafford Township on Oct. 21.

Fine had been warned by Murray on Sept. 12 that if Rocky broke out of her home again, she would lose him forever. That was when she appeared in court for the fourth time in less than a year on charges of letting the exotic animal break loose.

Murray on Friday made it clear that Rocky's status as a habitual offender had earned him a life term at the Popcorn Park Zoo. At previous court hearings, the judge has noted that Rocky broke out at least six times in the course of a year.

"Rocky is going to be a permanent resident of the Popcorn Zoo,'' Murray said Friday, as Fine brushed away tears.

"This should be an end to the tortured history of this case,'' the judge said to Fine."Some things are not meant to be. Rocky living in your household is one of them.''

In addition to ordering the surrender of Rocky to the Popcorn Park Zoo, the judge also fined Fine $500 for the latest offense and ordered her to pay $560 in restitution to the zoo for his room and board. Rocky has been kept at the zoo since his last escape from Fine's house on Oct. 21.

With a cadre of television cameras in tow, Fine hurriedly left the municipal complex after signing over ownership of the feline to Popcorn Park Zoo, a refuge for abused and neglected animals operated by the Associated Humane Societies in the Forked River section of Lacey Township.

Rocky has been in the news regularly during the course of the year, especially since he was on the lam for 12 days from March to April. His disappearance then spawned questions about Rocky's parentage and prompted Murray to order a DNA test on the animal to determine the species of his father.

Fine has represented that Rocky, a 4-year-old animal who has been declawed, is a hybrid of bobcat and Maine Coon cat. Murray in April ordered the DNA test on Rocky after officials with the Division of Fish and Wildlife went to him with their suspicions that the animal was pure bobcat, which would require a special permit to own. Murray told Fine then that if Rocky turned out to be pure bobcat, she would have to forfeit him.

But at another court hearing on May 16, Murray revealed that the DNA test on Rocky, while showing his mother was pure bobcat, was inconclusive as to his father. Because of that, Murray allowed Rocky to be returned to Fine after she paid a $1,000 fine and restitution of $216 to the Stafford Veterinary Hospital to reimburse it for tranquilizer medication used during attempts to capture the wayward animal.

But Rocky continued to escape from Fine's house after that, first on May 31 and again on July 6, landing Fine back before Murray on Sept. 12. At that time, she told the judge she had made extensive improvements to Rocky's enclosure to prevent him from getting out again. She told the judge then that if Rocky had any further escapes, she would voluntarily surrender him.

And, Rocky indeed escaped again on Oct. 21, when one of Fine's neighbors called police to report they saw the big cat running at large.

Fine's attorney noted in court that largely because of Rocky's escapades this year, Stafford Township adopted an ordinance in July prohibiting the ownership of exotic animals in the township.

(Courier Post Online - Dec 19, 2014)

Earlier:

• New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose
• For now Rocky's just a big cat, not bobcat, can go home
• Woman Loses Custody of Pet Bobcat
• Stafford bobcat allowed to return home
• New Jersey woman's bobcat caught after escaping for seventh time, being held at zoo

Bobcat Stuck In Car’s Grill: Wild Cat Gets Lodged In Grill That Required Cutting It To Rescue Him

ARIZONA -- In Arizona, a bobcat got stuck in a car grill when A.J. Michaels was on his way to a restaurant in Scottsdale.

CBS 5 Action News reports on the incident that took place Friday night at an area near Scottsdale and Indian Bend roads. After Michaels hit the animal, he kept driving and later walked around his vehicle checking for damage once he parked at the restaurant. What he saw shocked him, to say the least.

“I felt very badly it had been hit,” Michaels says. “I thought I killed it.”

Arizona Game and Fish Department officials pondered the best way to get the wild cat out of the grill, so Geoffrey Hossack shot a tranquilizer dart into the cat so he would be calm during the rescue process. A section of the grill required cutting into it so the 7-pound bobcat could be moved. He was first moved out of one tight space and placed into another. Fortunately, the animal wasn’t bleeding.

WFTV Channel 9 wrote in its report that upon initial examination, the bobcat may have suffered a back injury. At first Michaels thought the animal was dead until he spotted movement.

Hossack then then transported the bobcat that was stuck in the car grill to Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center. A vet there examined the wild feline and determined that he didn’t suffer any “breaks, fractures or external injuries,” according to the report.

In fact, Hossack is amazed at the bobcat’s condition considering what happened. For now, the cat will reside at Southwest Wildlife while they wait for test results to come back.

“I would say his condition is amazing. It’s unheard of that an animal this small is going get hit by a vehicle and survive.”

Michaels calls it a “New Year’s Eve miracle.”

Hossack says bobcats can leap as high as 12-feet and they have far more strength than domestic cats. They appear to be the same size, but they’re considerably stronger than the average feline.

Bobcats are often seen throughout Arizona.

The Inquisitr wrote on a similar story about an owl that got caught in a truck grill. The animal was hit and managed to remain in the grill while a woman drove for more than an hour in central Florida.
Once the bird had finally been discovered, it was well into the day. The driver believed she had hit and killed the animal, but the owl was fine and was rescued from the front section of the car.

A bobcat getting stuck in a car grill is just as shocking — and not what someone would expect to encounter.

(Inquisitor - Jan 4, 2015)

New Jersey woman's bobcat caught after escaping for seventh time, being held at zoo

NEW JERSEY -- Rocky, the 38-pound bobcat with a history of running away from home is back in custody.

The owner, Ginny Fine, was cited for allowing Rocky to escape. She is back in municipal court on Dec. 5.

The bobcat is now headed to the Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey. This is the sixth time he's been on the loose in the Ocean County Town of Manahawkin.

Rocky is a legal pet only because he's not all bobcat, and the owner just loves him. "I do love him. He's like family," said Fine. "He's very happy to be home."

Well, maybe not quite as happy as Ginny thought. Despite all kinds of safeguards put on his home, Rocky escaped again this week, for the sixth time, apparently fleeing into the woods across the street to dine on mice and squirrels.

"It's always a concern, there are residents living there year-round, there are children in that area," said Captain Thomas Dellane, of the Ocean County Police Department.

Finding Rocky has occupied a lot of Dellane's time, and that of the folks from animal control in the city. Last time, after his fifth escape, a judge promised there would be no tolerance for Rocky six.

"He did indicate if it were to escape again, they would award custody over to the Popcorn Park Zoo and take the custody away from the owner," Dellane said.

Most neighbors Eyewitness News spoke to said they weren't terribly concerned about the large cat being on the loose and were just wondering if the owners would be able to keep Rocky.

"He's a high maintenance pet, needs a lot of care," Fine said.

That's a burden that may soon no longer be hers.

(7online - Oct 22, 2014)

Earlier:

• New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose
• For now Rocky's just a big cat, not bobcat, can go home
• Woman Loses Custody of Pet Bobcat
• Stafford bobcat allowed to return home

Stafford bobcat allowed to return home

NEW JERSEY -- Rocky the bobcat hybrid is headed back home.

Municipal Court Judge Damian G. Murray on Friday decided that the infamous bobcat/Maine Coon cat mix could return home to his owner, Ginny Fine of the Beach Haven West section, after Fine told the judge she had made extensive improvements to her home to prevent the 38-pound feline from making another escape. The judge agreed that the improvements should prevent the bobcat mix from fleeing.

Court Administrator Carol Jenkins said Fine pleaded guilty to one count of letting an animal run at large. She was fined $250, plus $33 in court costs, Jenkins said. She also has to pay $448 restitution to Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey, where Rocky has been living since July. Fine is expected to take the cat home this week. Fine agreed that if Rocky escapes again, she will have to give him up permanently.

In July, Murray had required Fine to turn over her cat after he escaped from his pen July 6. It was the fourth time the frisky feline had run away from Fine's home.

Rocky gained notoriety after breaking out of his pen in March and remaining on the lam for 12 days. After the feline was lured back to Fine's house in April, it was seized by animal control officers and brought to the Popcorn Park Zoo, which is run by the Associated Humane Societies. Rocky was kept at the zoo while Fine faced a charge of letting the pet get loose, in violation of an agreement she signed in October after another escapade in which Rocky went on the lam.

While Rocky was at the zoo, Murray ordered a DNA test on the animal after representatives of the Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Fish and Wildlife brought him suspicions that Rocky was pure bobcat rather than a hybrid of bobcat and Maine coon cat, as Fine had claimed.

Fine pleaded guilty on May 16 to the charge stemming from the March escape. She was fined $1,000, but she also was allowed to take Rocky home from the zoo because the DNA test proved inconclusive. Rocky escaped again in May and July.

(Asbury Park Press - September 17, 2014)

Earlier:

• New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose
• For now Rocky's just a big cat, not bobcat, can go home
• Woman Loses Custody of Pet Bobcat

Baby bobcat recovering well at Morgan Hill wildlife center

CALIFORNIA -- The Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center in Morgan Hill is celebrating 20 years of successfully raising and releasing orphaned or injured bobcats back into their native habitat.

Their most recently rescued bobcat is an orphan named Fairfield.
The kitten was found in Fairfield, Calif. alone after its mother was shot. WERC rescuers suspect the mother was killed because she had been eating a homeowner's chickens.

 

"Luckily someone found the kitten and heard that there was possibly a bobcat shot. So they put two and two together," said Anna Venneman an outreach coordinator for WERC.

Fairfield was only 10-weeks-old and weighed 2.5 pounds when he was brought to Morgan Hill.

WERC uses innovative anti-imprinting techniques so that the bobcats can one day return to the wild.

The kittens are raised, trained and cared for entirely by "foster mothers" who dressed in full-body fur costume scented with bobcat urine and native herbs and worked in complete silence to prevent any positive association with humans.

If all goes well, the cute but feisty Fairfield will be rehabilitated and released back into the wild in October.

(KSBW - July 30, 2014)

Woman Loses Custody of Pet Bobcat

NEW JERSEY -- A South Jersey woman lost temporary custody of her pet bobcat after the animal escaped from her home multiple times.

On Friday a judge ordered that Ginny Fine's bobcat Rocky be seized and returned to Popcorn Park Zoo until the two pending charges against Fine are resolved.

Last June, Rocky escaped from Fine's Stafford Township home. The escape came less than three weeks after Fine told NBC10 she could guarantee Rocky would never get loose in the future. The animal was loose for about an hour before Fine retrieved her pet, police said.

A complaint from a neighbor prompted a response from the township’s Animal Control, which issued a summons to Fine for the animal “running at large.”

The 38 pound partially-declawed feline has been in the spotlight since late March after he got loose from Fine’s house, prompting concerns from neighbors and police. He was missing for days before turning up.

As a result of a previous court order stemming from a prior escape last fall, authorities seized Rocky and took him to the Associated Humane Societies’ Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey Township.

A DNA test to determine if Rocky is a purebred Bobcat, illegal to own as a pet in New Jersey, or a hybrid proved to be inconclusive. As a result, Rocky was returned to Fine on May 19, three days after Stafford Township Municipal Court Judge Damian Murray ruled she could have him back as long as an enclosure outside her home passed an inspection by township officials.

Murray also ordered Fine to pay a $1,000 fine and more than $200 in restitution. She now faces an additional fine.

Following the May 16 hearing, NBC10 News asked Fine if Rocky would be getting loose again, to which she adamantly replied, “Never, ever…I don’t ever want to do this again.”

The township’s Animal Control was alerted of the roaming bobcat by a neighbor who filed a complaint about the pet. Animal Control issued a summons to Fine for the animal “running at large.”

(NBC Philadelphia - Jul 19, 2014)

Earlier:

• New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose
• For now Rocky's just a big cat, not bobcat, can go home

For now Rocky's just a big cat, not bobcat, can go home

NEW JERSEY - -Who's the daddy of a 38-pound kitty that was wandering around this area in early April?

The answer to that question may never be known.

For that reason Rocky, a cat who's supposed to be a cross between a bobcat and a Maine coon but was suspected of being a purebred bobcat, can go home.

That was Municipal Court Judge Damian G. Murray's surprise ruling Friday as Rocky's owner, Ginny Fine, waited to hear results of a DNA test on her 3-year-old feline.

If the DNA test had revealed that Rocky was pure bobcat — males can weigh as much as 40 pounds while male Maine coon cats can tip the scales at more like 25 pounds — Fine would not have been allowed to have him back. New Jersey bans residents from owning "potentially dangerous species" as pets, which includes nondomestic cats, and she would have had to qualify for a special permit generally not issued to nonprofessionals.

But a bobcat hybrid is just considered a big kitty under state law.

Murray revealed the results of a mitochondrial DNA analysis performed on Rocky's blood at the Northeast Wildlife DNA Laboratory at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.

"The mother was determined to be a bobcat," Murray said, noting that the DNA test revealed Rocky's mother was 98% lynx rufus, or bobcat. Mitochnodrial DNA is inherited exclusively from the mother, so the DNA test revealed nothing about Rocky's father.

The test could not determine who Rocky's father was, and the Montana breeder from whom Fine obtained Rocky was not required to keep records of the animal's lineage, Murray said.

 

"The bottom line is Rocky goes home," the judge said.

The ruling caught Fine off guard. But she's ecstatic despite having just pleaded guilty to letting the animal get loose and being fined $1,000.

"I'm shocked," Fine said later. "I was not expecting that."

She said her house cats, Elsie and Checkers, will be happy to see Rocky, who has been declawed.

"They miss him terribly," Fine said. "Elsie has been walking around the house, looking in all the rooms for him."

Fine hopes to pick up Rocky on Monday from the Associated Humane Societies' Popcorn Park Zoo in Lacey, N.J., where the big cat has been kept since April 7. Officials there already had determined that Rocky has a domestic temperament, something Fine had told the judge.

Animal control officers brought Rocky to Popcorn Park Zoo a day after Fine had lured him back home. He had gotten loose March 25.

Murray ordered that Rocky be kept in an enclosure that officials from New Jersey's Division of Fish and Wildlife will inspect periodically.

"It is something I don't have a problem doing if I can have the cat back," Fine told the judge.

Outside the courtroom, she said the enclosure already has been constructed with money donated by people who want to see Rocky return home.

Animal Control Officer Kelly Karch said it will be inspected Monday

In imposing the $1,000 fine, Murray said the hunt for Rocky incurred labor expenses for police officers, who were "all over this town, hunting through the woods" for Rocky. It was the second time Rocky had run away.

Fine also had to pay $216 in restitution to Stafford Veterinary Hospital for tranquilizer medication used during an attempt to capture Rocky the second time.

But Rocky is still not out of the woods: Murray said he could be subject to seizure in the future if his father can be determined to be a bobcat.

(USA Today - May 18, 2014)

Earlier:

• New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose

New Jersey Town On Alert After Pet Bobcat Gets Loose

NEW JERSEY -- Police have warned residents in an Ocean County, N.J. town to be on the lookout for a missing cat — but this isn’t your average feline.

A bobcat named Rocky has been missing from his owner’s home in Stafford Township for more than a week.

Rocky’s owner, Ginny Fine, said the 3-year-old, 38-pound bobcat has been declawed and is usually timid toward strangers.

Local law enforcement officials, however, were urging residents to remain careful nonetheless.

Traps were set around the cat’s neighborhood, with the hope of catching the elusive feline.

Fine told The Asbury Park Press she got the big cat in Montana and that he isn’t a danger to anyone.

Police said Fine was already issued a summons after Rocky escaped last October. He returned home after three days.

(KBTX - April 5, 2014‎)

How do you get a bobcat out of your window blinds?

CANADA -- When a wayward bobcat got caught up in some window blinds, one RCMP officer MacGyvered a solution with two broom sticks, a knife, and of course, a roll of duct tape.

The incident began on Friday afternoon in Nelson, B.C., when Leanne Kalabis, who has a young son and is five months pregnant, heard strange noises coming from her basement.

She caught a glimpse of a furry face and thought it might have been a lost domestic cat, but when she went downstairs with her dog to investigate, it turned out to be a wild one.

"That's definitely not a house cat... that's definitely a bobcat," she recalled thinking.

Her dog gave chase and got a little scratched up, and the bobcat then scaled a wall and made it to the top of a window, where it caught up in the blinds.

Hissing and lunging for the dog, Kalabis said it became "quite entangled," and she decided to call for help.

"What do I do? I've got a bobcat in my basement," she said.

RCMP officer MacGyvers a solution
She called over a neighbour, who agreed the bobcat was going nowhere fast, and then the Mounties.

The RCMP officer who responded had to improvise.

"He initially thought maybe he could put a blanket over the bob cat and try to get it out this way. But realised quickly that it was very distraught and very vicious — Its claws were coming out and it was hissing," Kalabis said.

Instead, the officer MacGyvered a solution.

"He very creatively thought to put two broomsticks together, tape them with duct tape, put his knife on the end and was able to, from a corner, get the stick close enough to the blinds where he could cut the blinds and free the bobcat," she said.

The bobcat dropped from the cut blinds, ran at a few windows trying to get out, and then found the basement door and made it outside.

Kalabis said the whole incident was very surreal, and that she will be double-checking that her basement door — which she thinks blew open earlier in the day — stays closed from now on.

(cbc - Dec 16, 2013)

Bobcat Impounded, Cared For, Released Back Into Wild

CALIFORNIA -- Riverside County Animal Services officers released a bobcat back into the wild Sunday afternoon. The bobcat was impounded earlier Sunday, about 2 a.m., after a man had reported "hitting a tiger" with his car.

Animal control officers Cecelia Morris and Tiffany Fuller arrived at the scene, on La Sierra Avenue in Riverside, near Victoria Avenue.

Riverside Police officers and Officers Morris and Fuller the man informed them what happened.

They looked underneath the man’s car and discovered a bobcat hiding near one of the front wheels.

The animal control officers managed to get the bobcat on a catch pole. The animal appeared to be dazed.

They rushed the bobcat to one of the county’s contract partners, the Animal Emergency Clinic in Grand Terrace. The young male, about 8 months in age, appeared to have a concussion, a veterinary doctor at the clinic reported. Abrasions to his head and body were visible but all limbs were OK.

Later Sunday, Officer Fuller returned to the clinic and was happy to see the bobcat much more alert and “spunky.”

Officer Fuller also had been in contact with a representative at The Living Desert, a Coachella Valley-based nonprofit organization that specializes in the rehabilitation of wildlife.

After consulting with The Living Desert, the veterinary doctor at the Grand Terrace clinic and with veterinary professionals at the county’s main shelter in Jurupa Valley, the consensus was to release the bobcat back into the wild.

The bobcat was released in a rural location near La Sierra Avenue and El Sobrante Road, a spot that was within four miles of where he was first found. The release location was in compliance with state Fish & Wildlife’s relocation guidelines.

(KMIR - Aug 12, 2013)