The ferocious animal currently terrorizing residents of Suwannee County County, Florida, after two people were sent to the emergency room in two separate attacks, turned out to be a badly behaved house cat, US officials said and managed to elude capture for nearly a week.
The British newspaper The Guardian said, Saturday, May 27, 2023, that deputies from the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office had set traps for the feisty cat, but so far they have failed to catch it. Instead, the office’s animal control unit advised the public to “be vigilant against the ferocious cat or any other animals in the area showing signs of rabies”.
Alerts of dangerous loose animals are a common occurrence in the state of Florida, which leads the US states in terms of the number of times wild creatures escape from bears, lions and monkeys to snakes and tigers.
According to Sheriff Sam St. John’s Facebook page : “During two separate incidents, residents exercising and walking on 174th Street were attacked by a ferocious cat. Two residents were so seriously injured they had to seek medical treatment at local hospitals.”
Sheriff St. John has so far refused to issue a rabies warning “because the cat was not caught, and therefore unable to confirm whether or not it had rabies.” A county deputy told the Guardian the office was “hoping” to catch the cat in the coming days, but until then, residents of Lauraville, Suwanee County, should use “extreme caution” when outside.
Comments on the sheriff’s Facebook post include residents worried that public fear might lead them to declare “open hunting season” against any outdoor cats, as well as other comments criticizing the office; for not including even a basic description of the cat’s size or color.
Until the cat is caught, the sheriff’s office says it cannot say with certainty whether the cat is feral, or an escaped house cat with rabies.
Even if she is a lost pet, she is unlikely to break the record set by another stray cat found in Longwood, Florida, in February of last year, after she went missing from her home in Chesterville, Maine, 1,500 miles (2,414 km) away. km) in 2015.
