Injured bobcat treated, released back into wild

Officials with a wildlife hospital and education center in San Rafael helped a bobcat recuperate from being hit by a car last month in unincorporated Marin County, a center spokeswoman said.

The bobcat was hit after dark on Jan. 25 on Atherton Avenue near Oakshade Lane, WildCare spokeswoman Alison Hermance said.

Hermance said:

“He was hands down the biggest bobcat I have ever seen in my life…He was so long and super, super healthy.”

 

Some passersby found it stunned on the side of the road. They put it in a cardboard box until a worker with the Marin Humane Society arrived, Hermance said.

By then the cat was awake enough that it started to make its way back into the wild, so the worker gently used a catchpole to capture it.

Humane society officials called WildCare’s director of animal care Melanie Piazza, who gave the cat a tranquilizer because it was too aggressive to safely take to the center.

Piazza found the cat had escaped serious injury in the collision.

It had blood on its face and chest, but the most serious injury was a gash on its lip, which didn’t even require stitches. Piazza treated the gash, did an exam and took X-rays, all while the cat was asleep.

Piazza put him in a warm enclosure for the night and 24 hours after the animal came to WildCare, it was back in the wild, Hermance said.

WildCare officials are not sure what happened, but the bobcat may have suffered a glancing blow from a tire or mudflap, according to Hermance.

Owls, for example, get knocked out when they’re hit by a car’s antenna, but they don’t suffer any injuries, she said.