LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) \u2014 A Lincoln woman opened her door to a wild surprise earlier this month.<\/p>\n
It was an unusual encounter for Jackie Hamaker, who watched a baby bobcat walk right up to her front porch.<\/p>\n
Because of the frigid temperatures, Hamaker opened up her garage to the cat, luring her in with droppings of food.<\/p>\n
Hamaker said she immediately noticed how malnourished the animal looked, but also how well it took to people, which was not normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put it down on a sleeping bag, and I got a couple of space heaters, put some food and water out, and it started eating,\u201d she said. \u201cI pet it on the head, and it started purring. I thought, \u2018What a beautiful, exotic cat. Somebody\u2019s lost their cat.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamaker took to social media, posting the bobcat on the Lincoln Lost Dogs and Cats page.<\/p>\n
There, she received a ton of comments from others who were just as shocked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just surprised that it was a bobcat,\u201d Hamaker said. \u201cWhen I opened the door and stepped over her, she didn\u2019t even move.\u201d<\/p>\n
She decided to call Nebraska Wildlife Rehab, which made the trip from Omaha to Lincoln. The team quickly noticed how much help the bobcat needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy this time of year, she should probably be about 20 pounds,\u201d said Laura Stastny, the Executive Director of Nebraska Wildlife Rehab. \u201cShe wouldn\u2019t be an independent cat if she were raised in the wild; she would still be with her mother. But she is less than ten pounds in weight, and she is quite thin, almost emaciated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team took the bobcat\u2019s blood and performed multiple tests.<\/p>\n
A little while later, the bobcat began having a seizure, which was cause for more concern.<\/p>\n
Stastny said it\u2019ll be a long road to recovery, but without Hamaker taking her in, it could have been very different.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been on medication to keep her stable,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s been doing well and gaining weight and eating. Now it\u2019s a little bit of a wait-and-see, to see how she recovers. Unfortunately, she is really tame. She won\u2019t be a candidate to be re-released into the wild.\u201d\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tTags: baby bobcat<\/a>, Bobcat<\/a>, frigid temperatures<\/a>, jackie hamaker<\/a>, laura stastny<\/a>, lincoln<\/a>, lost bobcat<\/a>, malnourished<\/a>, Nebraska Lost Dogs and Cats<\/a>, Nebraska Wildlife Rehab<\/a>, Omaha<\/a>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) \u2014 A Lincoln woman opened her door to a wild surprise earlier this month. It…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":562894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[245696,93231,237618,245697,245698,3334,245699,28330,245700,199192,28597,159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-562893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-baby-bobcat","9":"tag-bobcat","10":"tag-frigid-temperatures","11":"tag-jackie-hamaker","12":"tag-laura-stastny","13":"tag-lincoln","14":"tag-lost-bobcat","15":"tag-malnourished","16":"tag-nebraska-lost-dogs-and-cats","17":"tag-nebraska-wildlife-rehab","18":"tag-omaha","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116005782419890185","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}