Bobcat Walks Into A Bar
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 29th, 2009
No, this is not a joke.
Sometimes short-term wildlife activity can be filmed with a cellphone, apparently. Maybe there is a chance that a Bigfoot can be captured this way too?
On Monday, March 23, 2009, at Cottonwood, Arizona, a bobcat walked into a bar and attacked three people, including two men who were bitten by the animal.
Officers called to the Chapparal Bar arrived to find the bobcat in the parking lot, where they shot and killed it.
Tests were ordered to determine if the animal was rabid and it was found to have rabies.
Cottonwood police say the animal attacked when it scratched a woman who thought she had hit it with her car. Then police got a report of a bobcat acting aggressively toward a woman outside a Pizza Hut.
About 11 p.m. came the call from the bar that a bobcat was inside as patrons climbed atop bar stools to get away.
As the video demonstrates, one man there had wounds, including ones behind his ear.
Thanks for taking the time to…
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I’m not too surprised. I was in Monett Missouri a couple of weeks ago and a skunk walked thru the automatic doors into Braums. Most of the people freaked out, but one guy was able to get it to go out a different door. It didn’t spray thank goodness! That would have been bad! It also didn’t act aggressive. Just seemed curious.
I first saw this story when it broke. At the time, it had not been determined whether the cat had rabies, but I felt sure it must. Bobcats are aggressive when they are cornered, but they don’t generally go swaggerring into buildings looking for people to attack. Those people are very lucky that they were not more seriously injured. A bobcat in a bad mood is nothing to mess with. A bobcat with rabies literally does not know nor care about its own safety or anything else, except attacking and biting.
Considering rabies: rabies is a virus that causes a form of encephalomyelitis (brain/central nervous system inflammation). Rabies is an elegant little rod-shaped viral package, possibly mutated from a plant virus many millions of years ago. A clinically simple but basically accurate description of how the rabies virus works is that it takes over the animal’s brain and cause it to spread rabies to other animals, usually by biting, thus ensuring the reproduction and future of the virus (at the expense of the individual aniimals that it infects, because rabies has the highest case/fatality rate of any disease and is almost invariably fatal).
For a person who works with animals, especially with other people’s animals, rabies is like a ghost in the room, because you always have to consider the possibility of rabies when an animal is behaving strangely. Anyone, such as veterinarians, animal shelter workers, and wildlife rehabilitators, who works with potentially unvaccinated animals, especially in areas where rabies has been reported, should receive pre-exposure rabies prophylaxis.
What many people fail to realize is that although in Western nations rabies is thought of as an uncommon disease of animals, in much of the world, rabies is an all-too-common human disease. Rabies accounts for about 30,000 to 50,000 human deaths per year, worldwide, with the greatest number of deaths in India. And rabies, not AIDS or ebola virus or any other more commonly feared disease, has the highest case/fatality rate of all human diseases. Once symptoms of rabies begin, death is almost 100% certain, despite every effort at treatment. Although two unvaccinated people (both teenagers) are known to have recovered from rabies after developing symptoms, the case/fatality rate for rabies remains near 100%.
Reported rabies cases, especially among wildlife, are on the rise in the USA. It’s not certain whether this is because more animals are becoming infected, or more people are coming into contact with wildlife, or simply that reporting is becoming more thorough in this age of instant communication and GPS. The rise in reported cases could be and probably is due to a combination of factors.
Kittenz,
thanks for the information on the human side of the rabies problem. I had no idea it was that severe, although I was aware that it existed. Chilling info, but very valuable.
Several years ago we were sitting in the maintenance shop on break and a mink wandered in. When he couldn’t get back out, he freaked out. We got a picture of him sitting on the tractor tire. Finally herded him towards the door and he found his way out. He seemed fine, just lost.
Last year someone had a black bear come into their house rooting around. Turned out they had been putting food for it on the porch. Not a good idea. He decided to come on in the kitchen to find something better than dry cat food. When they walked into the kitchen to see what the noise was, he went out…check that…went through the screen door getting out.
Sounds like this bobcat was rabid.
This is why we in the U.K. have the toughest quarantine laws in Europe to stop rabies getting in.
Rabies is no joke. It’s been proposed that if all roadkilled mammals could be tested for rabies, a high proportion (compared to the general animal population) might be rabid, because rabies causes animals to be incautious, disoriented and confrontational; in short, the theory is that rabid animals are more likely to wander onto a road into traffic. A small study was done, I forget where, on roadkilled skunks, which showed about a three times higher incidence of rabies than skunks trapped in a control group. Such a study is not really feasible on a large scale, due to lack of funds available, and also to the improbability of finding roadkilled animals in good enough condition to be tested (the brain must be reasonably intact and not decomposed).
All mammals can get rabies, as far as is known. It was once thought that the common Virginia opossum was immune, but that turns out not to be the case; they can and do get rabies, although it’s rare. Some animals are more likely to be infected than others: carnivores and bats are the animals that people usually associate with rabies, but cattle and horses are often exposed too. A rabid horse is a terrifying sight.
Although this is a little off-topic, I am glad that this post gave me the opportunity to talk about rabies. Many people do not realize that rabies is still a danger in the modern world. It’s extremely important to vaccinate your pets and livestock for rabies. There are excellent vaccines available that protect dogs, cats, and ferrets up to 3 years, and other livestock for a year (horses, for instance, should be vaccinated yearly). Most states require vaccination to be done by or under the supervision of a veterinarian. That’s to ensure that the vaccine is administered and documented properly; if your pet has been vaccinated for rabies by a vet, and it bites someone, it won’t have to be destroyed for rabies testing. Or if that pet is bitten by an animal that has rabies, the pet can be revaccinated immediately & quarantined for a couple of weeks, as opposed to being destroyed for rabies testing or quarantined for 6 months.
Don’t handle bats at all, and don’t approach wildlife, especially if it’s acting strangely or aggressively. Wash bite and scratch wounds, all of them, with soap and water. See a doctor to be evaluated for possiblle rabies prophylaxis if the animal hasn’t been vaccinated or can’t be located for quarantine or testing. If you find a bat in a room with an invalid or a small child, talk to a doctor about rabies. If you wake up and find a bat in your bedroom, talk to a doctor about rabies. Many people who get bat rabies have no recollection of having been bitten. Spelunkers who go into bat caves should wear breathing protection and should consider pre-exposure vaccination. People who are traveling to any country where rabies is prevalent should consider pre-exposure vaccine, because the supplies of post-exposure treatments are very limited in some countries, and may differ from what is used here. There have been two people who are known to have survived rabies. Two. At least 30,000 to 50,000 people die from rabies every year.
In the USA and Canada, rabies is mostly a disease of bats and other wildlife. But in most of the world, rabies is spread tp people mainly by unvaccinated dogs. Rabies, spread by dogs, is also threatening some critically endangered wildlife such as Ethiopian wolves. There are international vaccination programs, but funding is woefully short.
“Sometimes short-term wildlife activity can be filmed with a cellphone, apparently. Maybe there is a chance that a Bigfoot can be captured this way too?”
I think that every time I’m out at the bar , especially when it’s 10 cents wings night. 🙂
Wow, it’s like a bad joke.
A bobcat walks into a bar…
And attacks three people.
The bouncer should have stopped him at the door when he didn’t have ID. Maybe the bobcat slipped him a $5? Haha.
Good thing this didn’t happen in Kentucky … no one here would ever throw out a Kentucky Wildcat, rabies or not 😉
Totally agree with Kittenz on the Kentucky comment!! (Live here too!!)
A couple years ago my husband got within a couple feet of a full grown Bobcat before it casually walked off into the woods. Have always wondered if maybe it was rabid.
Awesome comments re. rabies, kittenz!
I really feel bad about the persons attacked by the bobcat. does the rabies treatment still involve those painful injections through the stomach *shudders*?
The rabies post-exposure protocol is not nearly as grueling as it was in the past. Current treatment (at least in the US and Canada) consists of one dose of human rabies immune globulin, followed by usually five doses of human diploid cell vaccine, given IM in the deltoid (arm) area, not in the middle torso as were previous treatments. Though current human rabies vaccines are not entirely without possible side effects, the fact of almost certain death following a diagnosis of clinical rabies makes post-exposure rabies vaccine a medical urgency. Treatment must not be delayed, because once symptoms begin, death is nearly sure to follow. The “Wisconsin protocol”, in which a rabid person is put into a drug-induced coma and given large doses of antiviral drugs in hopes that the person’s immune system will rally and beat the rabies virus, is experimental. It has been tried several times since the Wisconsin teenager survived rabies and only one other teenager has survived. No one knows, for sure, whether it was the treatment protocol that saved the patients, but as of now, it’s the best treatment out there.
My mother, along with her brother and their uncle, were all bitten by a rabid dog when she was a teenager. She had to undergo the series of twenty-one shots in her abdomen & she told me the shots were very painful. I’m glad that treatments have modernized. The current shots are no more painful than other vaccines.