How do you get a bobcat out of your window blinds?
Distraught and hissing: Wild cat proves blinds are hazard to more than just domestic cats
When a wayward bobcat got caught up in some window blinds, one RCMP officer MacGyvered a solution with two broom sticks, a knife, and of course, a roll of duct tape.
The incident began on Friday afternoon in Nelson, B.C., when Leanne Kalabis, who has a young son and is five months pregnant, heard strange noises coming from her basement.
She caught a glimpse of a furry face and thought it might have been a lost domestic cat, but when she went downstairs with her dog to investigate, it turned out to be a wild one.
"That's definitely not a house cat... that's definitely a bobcat," she recalled thinking.
Her dog gave chase and got a little scratched up, and the bobcat then scaled a wall and made it to the top of a window, where it caught up in the blinds.
Hissing and lunging for the dog, Kalabis said it became "quite entangled," and she decided to call for help.
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"What do I do? I've got a bobcat in my basement," she said.
RCMP officer MacGyvers a solution
She called over a neighbour, who agreed the bobcat was going nowhere fast, and then the Mounties. The RCMP officer who responded had to improvise.
"He initially thought maybe he could put a blanket over the bob cat and try to get it out this way. But realised quickly that it was very distraught and very vicious — Its claws were coming out and it was hissing," Kalabis said.
Instead, the officer MacGyvered a solution.
"He very creatively thought to put two broomsticks together, tape them with duct tape, put his knife on the end and was able to, from a corner, get the stick close enough to the blinds where he could cut the blinds and free the bobcat," she said.
The bobcat dropped from the cut blinds, ran at a few windows trying to get out, and then found the basement door and made it outside.
Kalabis said the whole incident was very surreal, and that she will be double-checking that her basement door — which she thinks blew open earlier in the day — stays closed from now on.
With files from the CBC's Annie Ellison