‘Chaotic situation.’ NC responders stayed calm to free bobcat from a car grill.
Wildlife responders “were out the door in minutes” of a call they said they’ll never forget.
A Lincoln County sheriff’s officer was on the line Wednesday to report a bobcat trapped in the engine compartment of a car whose driver hit the animal.
The “stunning, strong and wild” 17-pound male bobcat was “injured, scared and not moving,” according to the Carolina Wildlife Conservation Center.
The nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center and its 105-acre wildlife preserve are minutes from Lake Norman, on North Ingleside Farm Road in eastern Lincon County.
State-licensed wildlife rehabilitators and an on-site veterinarian provide 24-hour care for injured wildlife from across North Carolina. The goal is to release them back into the wild.
The bobcat “had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time,” center officials said on social media.
Bobcats are native to North Carolina. While “quietly living among us,” even near Charlotte, the animals play “a vital role in our local ecosystems,” center officials said. “And that’s a good thing. Wild means unseen. Wild means free.”
The center, however, included a black heart emoji with its post.
Wildlife specialists encounter ‘chaotic situation’
Rehabilitators said they arrived to a growing crowd at the wreck scene.
“While the situation was chaotic, our team remained calm, professional, and focused on one thing: the safe capture of the bobcat,” according to the center.
They sedated the bobcat, removed it from the front grill and drove it to the center’s hospital.
“Radiographs revealed a completely shattered humerus, with too many fragments to piece together and devastatingly close to the joint,” officials said.
The center’s two veterinarians agreed that “not even a board-certified orthopedic surgeon could repair the injury,” according to the center. “Without the full use of that limb, survival in the wild was impossible,” so the bobcat was euthanized.
“He passed peacefully, still under sedation, free from fear or pain,” center officials said. “This is the side of wildlife rescue that most people don’t see: the heartbreak, the hard choices, and the unshakable commitment to doing what is right for the animal, even when it breaks our hearts.”