RCMP officer takes creative approach to release bobcat from Nelson basement
By Nelson Daily Staff
Following a long day working with students, the next item on the agenda for Nelson’s Leanne Kalabis was to collect her 1-1/2 year old son and head home.
Did we say Kalabis was five months pregnant?
However, relaxation was the last thing the Nelson mother got to experience after a wayward bobcat found its way into the basement of the Johnstone Road home Friday afternoon at around 2 p.m.
“My son was sleeping so I put him to bed and that’s when I heard the noise in the basement and went down there with our dog to investigate,” Kalabis told The Nelson Daily Monday during the lunch break from her job at Blewett Elementary School.
What Kalabis found cruising around the basement was a shock to the system.
“That’s definitely not a house cat . . . that’s definitely a bobcat,” Kalabis said.
The bobcat had ventured into the basement through a door that had blown open.
The hallway from the basement door is curved, so the bobcat, looking for food in all the wrong places, could not find its way out.
Seeing the bobcat, the Kalabis family dog gave chase and the two two animals began scrapping.
The bobcat got in a few licks to the ear of the Kalabis family dog, then, with the dog retreating, scampered up to a top window where it got caught up in blinds.
The bobcat became very tangled in the blinds while still hissing and lunging at the dog.
At a loss for solutions, Kalabis called over neighbour Dr. Jim Noiles and the RCMP.
“(RCMP officer) initially thought maybe he could put a blanket over the bobcat and try to get it out this way,” said Kalabis, adding the officer arrived in about 15 minutes.
“But he realized quickly that (bobcat) was very distraught and very vicious — its claws were coming out and it was hissing.”
That’s when the RCMP officer got a little creative to release the bobcat from the blinds.
“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,” Kalabis said.
Kalabis said once the bobcat was released from the blinds, the animal ran at a few windows trying to get before the officer used a shield to direct the furry cat back out the basement door.
Kalabis said the whole incident took approximately two and a half hours before the bobcat was on its way back into the forest.
Ironically, her young son slept through the entire ordeal.
