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Bobcat survives 50-mile drive stuck in front grill of Prius

By Ben Hooper
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Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Animal rescuers in Virginia were called out to assist a bobcat that survived traveling 50 miles in the grill of a woman's car.

Richmond Animal Care and Control Director Christie Peters said a woman driving to work struck an animal in Gloucester County early Thursday morning and discovered when she arrived at Virginia Commonwealth University that there was a bobcat stuck in the grill of her Prius.

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Peters said the bobcat was apparently stuck in the grill for 50 miles, about an hour of travel.

The director said she was baking a pie for Thanksgiving when she was contacted by RACC Officer Barbara Jones.

"We've never done anything like this," Peters told WTVR-TV. "I didn't want to make anybody else get out of bed on Thanksgiving morning, so I went with my dad."

She said it was an unusual request to make of her father.

"I just finished making a chocolate pie, got the call and was like 'Dad, you want to go help me get a Bobcat out of a car grill?'" Peters wrote on the RACC's Facebook page.

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"We got on scene and it really was true. It's really a bobcat stuck in the front of a Prius grill," Peters said. "When we walked by, he hissed at us, so he's alive and may be OK, which was so crazy since she drove from Gloucester to VCU."

Peters used a special pole to sedate the bobcat before moving some plastic components and a wire under the car to free the animal.

"And he was completely fine," Peters said. "It's insane."

The feline, which suffered only minor scratches from its ordeal, was taken to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro and will eventually be returned to the wild near where it was struck by the car.

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