Brandon Bobcat Call

This morning, at 1:15 AM Jamie and Carole responded to a call in Brandon about a bobcat being hit by a car. Dr Justin Boorstein came in and they did Xrays to see what could be done.

 

Jamie recalls the event:

 

I got a call at 1:15 AM and it’s a man saying that his wife has found an injured bobcat in the middle of the highway in Brandon.  Most people have no idea what a bobcat looks like, so I ask him to have his wife text me a photo.  Dang!  It’s a bobcat!  Now I’m awake.

 

I call my mom to ask if she has a net and carrier at her house next door, so that I can save time getting to the scene, but she doesn’t.  She gets out of bed and says she’ll go with me.  As I hop into her truck she says, “Do you have a coat?”  It’s in the 50’s, which is freezing to us Floridians, and I say, “I’m in my pajamas!  No, I didn’t bring a coat!”  Turns out she’s barely dressed and forgot hers too.  Thankfully there are blankets in the truck.

 

The good news about early morning bobcat calls is that there is no one on the streets so we get to the sanctuary (4 miles away) in record time and exchange her pickup truck for the Tundra with a topper that we won in a Facebook contest a few years ago.  (Thank you everyone who voted for us!)  We had just released Rain and Dancer the 9 month old rehab bobcats the day before, so there are still nets and gloves in the back.  We grab a big carrier out of the Emergency Response Center and are on our way.

 

Meanwhile the Good Samaritan who had called in the accident is frantic because the police have shown up on the scene and told her she can’t stay in the middle of the highway.  She puts the officer in charge, in touch with me by phone and he’s saying he doesn’t think the bobcat is going to make it and maybe should be put out of his misery.  I tell him that a bobcat in shock can look quite dead, but can regain consciousness very quickly and that they have an amazing ability to heal.  I don’t want him to shoot the cat in the head, so I tell him that my husband is a veterinarian and standing by to humanely euthanize him, if that is what has to be done.  He asks how long before we will be there, and by now we are about 20 minutes away.

 

More calls and texts back and forth and the woman who originally called us seems sure the police sent her away so they could dispose of the cat.  We are driving as fast as we can, but it’s a long way from Citrus Park to the Brandon mall and we aren’t allowed to use flashing lights and sirens in order to save wildlife.  Maybe we need a law that would allow rehabbers the same use as ambulance drivers.

 

The policeman contact me again and he sounds like he’s ready to call it quits because the bobcat looks so bad.  He says that he doesn’t think the cat is going to make it, and that he’s bleeding from the nose and his eyes look bad, and even thinks he can be picked up by hand.  By now we are 5 minutes out and ask him to wait.  He agrees.

 

Carole recalls what happened next:

 

As WAZE is telling us that we are arriving at the location, I see the flashing lights of a patrol car and start to pull up behind it, but then notice there are patrol cars, lights flashing, at every corner of the huge intersection.  My first concern is which one should I pull up next to, in order to have our tools closest to the cat, but then my heart leaps with joy to realize that the agency has cordoned off the entire road to insure that no one runs over the bobcat who is crouched in the middle of the road.  I’ve never seen the police be so concerned about an injured animal before and it makes me grateful beyond belief.

 

In the center of all the chaos, I can see him and he looks HUGE.  He’s in pain, so he’s all puffed up, but the lights from angle, highlight a halo in his fur tips that make him seem enormous.  I wonder to myself if I brought a big enough carrier.  Jamie and the officer she had been speaking with grab the nets and I grab the carrier out of the back of the Tundra an