Bobcats

Bobcat

Bobcat Attack of Human May be First in Minnesota
Cass County woman not seriously hurt
Friday, July 21, 2000
CHRIS NISKANEN OUTDOORS EDITOR
A wild bobcat attacked and injured a rural Cass County woman last week as she walked across her yard, reading her satellite TV guide.
Diana Marks, who lives on Big Thunder Lake near Remer, Minn., apparently startled the bobcat as it was attacking a stray house cat on her lawn July 14.
``I yelled at the cats, and that's when I noticed one was very, very large and had its ears laid back,'' Marks said. ``It flew at me from 10 feet away and got my arm.''
Wildlife authorities say it may be the first attack of its kind in Minnesota, where bobcats are known to roam close to rural homes and occasionally prey on house cats.
The 49-year-old woman suffered puncture wounds and claw marks on her left hand and arm. She didn't require stitches but is being treated for rabies as a precaution. It's unknown whether the bobcat was diseased.
A predator expert with the Department of Natural Resources said he has never heard of a bobcat attacking a human since he began working for the agency in 1974. There are approximately 2,000 to 3,000 bobcats in Minnesota, mostly in the northern part of the state.
``But bobcats can live amazingly close to people and people don't know it,'' said DNR researcher Bill Berg.
Marks was returning from her mailbox around 2:30 p.m. when she came across the two cats fighting in her yard. She recalls not paying attention to the commotion because she was immersed in a TV guide article about the Minnesota Vikings' coming football season.
After the bobcat attacked her, it jumped away and ran into the woods. The cat, which she estimated weighed to 20 to 25 pounds, left six puncture wounds and scratches on her left hand and arm. Her husband was sleeping on the couch with a fan on when she rushed into the house screaming and bleeding.
``She came bolting through the door and was gushing with blood,'' said her husband, Pat Jones. ``She was hysterical.''
Berg believes Marks startled the bobcat while it was trying to kill the stray house cat. He believes the bobcat instinctively leaped on Marks when she interrupted the battle.
``When animals are fighting like that, they become very focused on the fight,'' he said. ``I'm sure this wasn't an intentional attack on a human.''
Berg keeps a bobcat skull on his desk. When told of the size and distance between Marks' puncture wounds, he said they were consistent with a bobcat's teeth.
Bobcats are known to prey on house cats because they view them as competitors for food, Berg said. Bobcats are brownish-golden, have a short, stubby tail and usually weigh between 20 and 30 pounds. Larger specimens can weigh up to 44 pounds.
Marks stands about 5 feet 1 and weighs 130 pounds.
``She's kind of lucky,'' Berg said. ``We use the utmost caution when we capture and handle them. They're a ball of fury. If that bobcat had attacked with malicious intent, it could have seriously maimed her.''
There hasn't been an effort to capture the bobcat. Given the rarity of the incident, Berg said it was very unlikely the bobcat would attack again.
However, the bobcat returned to Marks' yard and was spotted by her husband just an hour after the attack.
``I got a good look at it from 30 yards,'' Jones said. ``I grabbed my gun and threw a couple of shells in it, but the bobcat ran away.''
Berg speculated it was still looking for the stray cat.
Jones said a bobcat had apparently been prowling the Big Thunder Lake area in recent days. A neighbor had spotted one on his roof the night before, where it had apparently cornered another domestic cat.
Jones said a bobcat and two bobcat kittens appeared near their home last summer. One of their house cats disappeared soon afterward.
The stray cat, Marks said, had been hanging around their house in recent days and had been adopted by a neighbor who named it Bud.
Bud suffered several puncture wounds on its neck but apparently survived.
Marks, though, is still shaken by the incident and now looks more closely in the woods when she walks to the mailbox.
``I'm still a little spooked by the whole thing,'' she said. ``Actually, it has spooked a lot of people around here.''
There is a trapping and hunting season for bobcats in Minnesota, starting in early December. About 100 to 300 are taken annually by hunters and trappers.
© 2000 PioneerPlanet / St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press

Bobcat that attacked 7 had rabies
By Tom Bayles STAFF WRITER
August 30 1999
A bobcat that attacked seven people near Sarasota Square Mall last week -- including a woman nearly eight months pregnant -- was infected with rabies, state health officials determined Monday.
The 20-pound bobcat was clubbed to death by a landscaper Friday in the back yard of a home on Baywood Drive, just east of Sarasota Bay, after authorities had spent 25 hours looking for the animal. Its head was sent for testing at a state Department of Health lab in Tampa.
"We consider rabies to be endemic in Florida," said Lisa Conti, a health department veterinarian. "We expect to see a number of animals with rabies" throughout the state every year.
Conti said 104 animals tested positive for rabies from January through July, with findings common in raccoons, bats, foxes and otters. One other rabid bobcat was found this year in the state -- in Manatee County in January.
Because the bobcat in Sarasota tested positive for the disease, those attacked by it Thursday and Friday must undergo a 28-day regimen of shots to boost their immune systems to fight the virus. Left untreated, rabies can cause death in humans after the virus attacks the brain, causing lethargy, paranoid delusions and coma.
The bobcat first attacked a woman walking her poodle Thursday night near Sunrise Country Club, and then a man walking Friday morning near Prestancia Boulevard.
The third victim, expectant mother Vanessa Hartlove, was cutting palm fronds for a party at an assisted-living facility when the bobcat attacked, biting her in the forearm and scratching her.
"He started growling at me," she said. "I fell to the ground. I was screaming."
The attack knocked over Hartlove, who grabbed the saw she was using to cut the palm fronds and swung it at the bobcat. The animal ran off.
"She will need the rabies vaccination, which is safe to take and will not cause any harm to her or her baby," said Washington C. Hill, a perinatalogist with Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
Hill is not Hartlove's doctor, but he treats high-risk pregnancies for the hospital.
"The vaccine is perfectly safe to use," he said.
After biting Hartlove, the bobcat attacked four more people before being killed by landscaper Dennis Marlin. Though the victims endured bites and scratches, none suffered severe injuries.
Homer Rice, a director at the Sarasota County health department, said rabies incubates in humans in as quickly as six weeks -- so those attacked by the bobcat need to get the first two shots in the regimen as soon as possible.
The first injection, a human rabies immunoglobulin, provides immediate resistance to the virus. The second, a rabies vaccine administered five times during the next four weeks, helps the body build its resistance to the virus.
The shots scheduled for the bobcat's victims will be far less painful than for those exposed to the virus in the past. Thanks to medical advances, the regimen includes about six shots in the arm over 28 days instead of up to 21 shots directly into the wall of the abdomen.
Even though the attacks last week were spread over a large area south of Clark Road in Sarasota County, authorities believe only one bobcat was responsible.
Conti said it was possible that the bobcat fought with a rabid raccoon in the wild and contracted the disease. It was not known whether the bobcat infected any other animals.
While searching for the animal last week, traps were set and pet owners were warned not to leave their animals outdoors. Deputies manned bus stops and warned schoolchildren and parents about the animal.
Officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Sarasota County Sheriff's Office tracked the animal based on calls from residents who spotted it in their neighborhoods.
Pet owners can help avoid exposure to rabies by vaccinating their pets, not feeding or handling wildlife or stray animals and feeding cats and dogs indoors.