Bobcat in Car Grill Survives 50-Mile Ride With a Few Bumps

A bobcat stuck in a car grill survived a 50-mile drive in Virginia before being freed by animal control officers with just some bumps and a small cut.

Christie Peters, director of Richmond Animal Care and Control in Richmond, told WTVR that a woman had arrived at work at Virginia Commonwealth University on Thanksgiving and found the bobcat stuck in the grill of her Prius.

The woman said she knew she "hit something" in Gloucester County but didn’t know what until she parked her vehicle in Richmond after a nearly one-hour drive and found the trapped bobcat, WTVR said.

Peters and other officers were able to tranquilize the bobcat wedged in the grill, which apparently got caught with its underbelly on a plastic piece of the vehicle, noted WTVR.

Richmond Animal Care and Control transported the cat to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro for treatment. The center's website said the bobcat was "sutured, hydrated, and medicated."

"(The bobcat's) very ferocious," Alexa Ortiz, veterinarian intern at the center, told WVIR-TV. "This was our first adult bobcat into our clinic since 2011, and overall this is our seventh bobcat we've ever admitted, since 2011. Usually one, maybe two per year is kind of our average, so we've definitely hit our limit this year."

Despite being struck by the car and the drive, the 19-pound bobcat didn’t have any broken bones, WVIR-TV said.

"It was pretty surprising," Jenna Larios, licensed veterinary technician intern told the television station. "(The bobcat) did have obviously some head trauma but it could have been at a much worse extent, so she's really very, very lucky."

WVIR-TV said the bobcat also had an eight-centimeter wound on its back.

"Officer (Barbara) Jones sent me a text message at 8:06 a.m. And the text was, 'I'm on a call with a bobcat stuck in the grill of a car – and he's still alive,'" Peters told WTVR. "We've never done anything like this. I didn't want to make anybody else get out of bed on Thanksgiving morning,

so I went with my dad."

"Animal Control is so funny, you never know what you’re going to walk into," Peters said. "It's perfect that it was Thanksgiving… because it was just a miracle and we're so grateful that it ended the way that it did."

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