Holly MatkinPortage County, WI – Portage County sheriff’s deputies found themselves in a bizarre situation on Tuesday night after they received a call from a citizen requesting assistance with a bobcat that was in their car (video below).
“Ok this is a first,” Portage County Sheriff Mike Lukas said in a Facebook post on Wednesday afternoon.
The unusual call came in on April 18.
“I have a bobcat in my car,” the reporting party told the dispatcher.
After gathering the necessary information from the caller, the dispatcher sent the call out over the radio.
“You can only imagine what everyone was thinking at the time,” Sheriff Lukas said. “So, when they dispatched over the radio numerous deputies were curious.”
Three Portage County deputies responded to the scene to investigate the strange complaint.
Sheriff Lukas said they were “shocked” to discover the situation to be just what the caller had described.
“[Lo] and behold there was a bobcat in the vehicle,” he said.
The live-yet-disgruntled bobcat was wedged firmly in the grille of the car, bodycam footage showed.
“My deputies are really good at solving problems but this one baffled them so we called in reinforcements with Conservation Warden Bryan Lockman,” Sheriff Lukas noted.
Bodycam footage showed deputies and the game warden strategically wrangling the massive bobcat out of the front of the vehicle.
Once the warden secured the snare pole around the big cat’s head, a second deputy pulled the broken grille back to release it.
The crazed feline flipped itself through the air as the game warden expertly corralled it in the back of a pickup truck and closed the tailgate, the video showed.
“As you can see on the bodycam footage Warden Lockman was a pro at getting the critter out and in his truck and returned it to the wild,” Sheriff Lukas wrote. “All in a day’s work at the Portage County Sheriff’s Office and the Wisconsin DNR.”
Watch the incident unfold in the video below:
Bonus science break.
Bobcat found in grill of car in Portage County.
This happened last night in neighboring county only about 15 miles from my house. With the help of a conservation warden they got it out from that grill. A lady hit it on the highway and it survived unharmed. pic.twitter.com/Hae9gh1lHn— Firecaptain and Jack (@Firecaptain16) April 20, 2023
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