An Atlanta woman recently had the surprise of a lifetime when she awoke to find an exotic wild cat in bed with her.
According to KKTV 11, officials with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) are now searching for a loose serval in the Brookhaven area of the Buckhead neighborhood. Servals are native to Africa, and can grow up to 2 feet tall and weigh 40 pounds, and closely resemble small cheetahs.
Kristine Frank believes the cat may have snuck into the home while her husband left the door open to take the trash out. She was able to scare the cat off the bed and flea the room while her husband opened a door and ushered the cat outside.
The woman contacted Fulton Country Animal services on Wednesday evening to report the incident, and her husband was able to snap a photo of the cat to corroborate her story.
The woman was not injured, but was quite shaken up by the incident.
“I’m laying in bed, and I hear a thump on my bed. It was big. It was scary. You can’t predict what a wild animal is going to do when it’s cornered.
I said, ‘That’s not a normal house cat. I don’t know what that is, but I am terrified right now. Afterwards I was like, ‘Was that a bobcat? Was it a leopard? Was it a baby? Was it a mom?
It still kind of terrifies me because that cat is illegal and there’s a reason it’s illegal. So I really don’t know what it’s capable of doing.
This could have gone horribly different. I have an elderly dog. I’m lucky I don’t have any small children anymore. I don’t know what this cat – this is a wild animal, and they shouldn’t be pets.”
It is illegal to own servals in the state of Georgia, and the DNR reportedly received two other calls about the cat from people that saw it roaming free near a local golf course. The cat’s owner has not been identified, although there is an investigation underway as authorities continue to search for the cat.
A spokesman for the DNR said a team has reportedly set a trap in the area the cat has been spotted.
They are hoping to capture it for relocation to an animal sanctuary where it will hopefully be unable to continue terrifying anymore women in their bedrooms.
“We are currently plotting the serval’s movements through reports of sightings from the public. In total we have had six sightings which are all the same general area.
The location of our trap is still centrally located within the cat’s movement area so it will remain there until it drastically changes location.”
