By LORI COPE | East Texas Edition

June 29, 2006 - The Chinese may have the Year of the Cat, but Northeast Texas seemed to have the Week of the Cat recently.

Three once-in-a-lifetime, cat-related incidences drew media attention earlier this month, and only one left the person involved unharmed.

Jacque Harris described her cat-related incident as “beautiful but scary.” On Saturday, June 17, Harris was tending the row of blueberry bushes at her family’s farm east of Edom, in Van Zandt County. Harris said she was bent down working when she heard pounding footsteps approaching. As she stood, a deer came bounding across the area. “Then, only about five or six lengths behind the deer was a cougar,” she related. “Both were stretched out flat, running fast, and as they went in front of me, they both just slightly turned their heads to look at me.”

The chasee and chaser were about 60 feet away from Harris; and it was the “heat of the day,” around 2 p.m.

The deer leaped a barbed wire fence and ran behind some bushes, Harris recalled. The cougar was hot on the deer’s trail. “As the deer came back around the shubbery, it let out a bleat, like a distress cry,” Harris said. The cougar had apparently changed its course and was not behind the deer as it came back into Harris’ view.

Just as quick, a large deer came into the picture, obviously responding to the distress cry. “I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and this other, bigger deer was coming towards me. It kept watching the area where the cougar was, at the bushes.” The deer that had been chased went to the bigger deer, and both headed back the way the chased deer had come. “As they left, they angled toward me, and away from where the cougar had been, like maybe they were less scared of me than the cougar.”

The incident played out in slow motion for Harris, but in all, it only took a matter of seconds. Harris did think to get her only available weapon – a can of hornet spray – into her hands when the cougar disappeared behind the bushes. “I grabbed the can from the golf cart and tested it. It could shoot up to 20 feet, and I thought if I had to, I’d shoot it into the cougar’s face.”

Luckily for Harris the cougar didn’t return. Harris said deer are a common site at their farm near Edom, but she hasn’t even seen a bobcat at the place, little alone a long-tailed cougar.

In August 2005, Country World reporter Kari Kramer wrote about an increase in cougar, or mountain lion, population in Texas (www.countryworldnews.com/Editorial/ETX/2005/et0818cats.htm). “Analysis of animal control activities’ reports note the mountain lion population in Texas is slowly increasing. Any definite count, as to their numbers, is not achieveable; but a growing number of reported sightings have led wildlife officials to be certain the number is on its way up. While the big cats may attack humans, pets, and livestock, they prefer to consume deer, hogs, and rabbits,” Kramer reported.

“I know this was not a bobcat. It was a solid tan color with a long tail,” Harris recalled. “I just couldn’t believe it all. This is something I will never forget.”

Two other memorable incidents involving cats were reported by Dr. James Wright, a veterinarian with Texas Department of State Health Services, and The Associated Press. Both of these incidents left the human victim in need of serious medical attention.

Wright related the incident involving a domesticated cat attacking a man near Gilmer. The kitty had been hanging around the man’s barn and house for a few years, and was basically just a stray cat that lived up at the barn. When the man arrived home on June 15, the cat came into the yard, laid down, then got up and “acted drunk,” reported Wright. “About that time, the man got a call on his cell phone. While he was leaning against his truck talking on the phone, the cat attacked him.”

The cat bit into the man’s leg and held on so tightly it had to be physically removed, Wright continued. The cat then ran under the barn.

The man consulted his veterinarian and the Department of State Health Services’ zoonosis staff. He was assured the cat’s behavior was unusual and was advised that if he could not apprehend the cat for quarantine or rabies testing, he should consult his physician about taking the rabies post-exposure series.

When the cat surfaced from under the barn a few hours later, it was shot and submitted for testing.

“This homeowner was fortunate that the cat stayed under the barn. It did not go off and die. It did not get eaten by a coyote. He was able to shoot it (without injuring the head since the brain tissue is what’s tested for rabies), and take it to his veterinarian for rabies testing,” Wright said.

However, the testing concluded the cat was rabid, and the man is now in the process of taking the rabies series shot, according to Wright. The cost of the medicine, not including the doctor’s charge for administering it, was $1,933.

“As is all too common, this barn cat never had a rabies vaccination,” Wright said. “This incident illustrates why it is important to vaccinate all dogs and cats that are encouraged, or even allowed, to hang around one’s house or barn. In East Texas, rabid skunks or bats are reported in nearly all of our counties each year. In the past two-and-a-half years, rabies has been reported in a dog, a horse, and five skunks in Upshur County (where the man resides).

“Invariably, if a pet, even a ‘it-just-hangs-around-and-I-feed-it’ animal, comes down with rabies, it exposes the disease to many people,” Wright said. This bite victim was likely glad it didn’t happen to his child, grandchild, or neighbor, the veterinarian added.

The report of a cat attack in Kaufman County was different than the rabid barn cat incident. In mid-June, a part-time employee at an animal sanctuary was attacked by an escaped Bengal tiger. The employee was working between two fences at Zoo Dynamics when he noticed the escaped tiger, according to an Associated Press report. As he ran to get help, the tiger pounced on him.

“The healing process may take a little time,” said employee Don Roberts from Methodist Dallas Medical Center on June 21. He suffered numerous claw marks and cuts that required about 2,000 stitches.

The escaped tiger was captured and remains under quarantine.