PORT LUDLOW — Boo Boo, a domestic cat, is safely back home after a 35-pound bobcat entered his house last weekend and spooked him into sprinting for the outdoors.
His owner, Andrew Lesko, was surprised Saturday when the male bobcat slipped in through the door he leaves open for Boo Boo and his other cat, Big Baby, at his home at 36 Seven Sisters Road in Port Ludlow.
State Fish and Wildlife Officer Win Miller said that he “had never heard of a bobcat entering someone’s house.”
Lesko was in his office at about 9 a.m. “when I heard a huge racket.”
He found a bobcat running around his living room “going crazy.”
It was bouncing around the room, ricocheting off a flat-screen TV and a window before running upstairs.
“It really wanted to get out but had no idea how to do it,” Lesko said.
“I didn’t know how to deal with this. There was only one way out of the house, and it didn’t know what to do.”
Lesko stepped outside and phoned 9-1-1.
Officers arrived quickly in a multi-agency response from the State Patrol, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Animal Control and state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Animal Control officers Alex Mintz and Bruce Turner, equipped with long-range and short-range tranquilizer guns, went after the bobcat.
Turner hit the bobcat with a single shot of xylazine, a sedative for animals, with the short-range gun “because you want to be careful using a long-range gun in a small space” Mintz said.
Mintz said that bobcats aren’t aggressive unless they are cornered. So, the two knew it was likely to be the most dangerous just after the shot and before it lost consciousness.
After the bobcat stayed still for about five minutes, the officers loaded the unconscious cat into an animal carrier and carried it to an open area about six miles away.
They propped the cat against a tree and waited for it to regain consciousness. When it did not recover after a few minutes, Miller administered an antidote.
The cat roused, then ran away.
Lesko speculated that the bobcat followed Boo Boo, his smaller cat, into the house.
During the ruckus, Lesko assumed that Boo Boo had been chased away or killed. But the small cat returned home Tuesday.
Big Baby hid under the bed upstairs. Lesko said the bobcat seemed unaware of the hidden cat.
Miller said the species is not aggressive, and will not make an unprovoked attack on a human. But he suggested that people always approach them cautiously.
“With any kind of cat, you never know if you are going to get scratched,” he said. “And bobcats’ claws are pretty sharp.”
Lesko, who has lived in Port Ludlow for about four years, is a land developer and a businessman.
He plans to market a product called Brawny Cat, which is a self-contained structure for large domestic cats.
In a nod to the incident at his house on Saturday, Lesko said “cats need to have their own space.”
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Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
