Update: Rabies Tests Are Negative For Bobcat Shot, Killed In Central El Paso Backyard

Update: A spokeswoman with the City of El Paso’s Animal Services Dept. said on Tuesday morning that rabies tests came back negative on the bobcat that was shot and killed on Saturday.

Previous story posted Feb. 20, 2012: It was a normal Saturday afternoon at the Cazares family home.

Nieces and nephews were playing in the backyard with 16-year-old Abby Cazares keeping watch over the little ones. However, play time turned terrifying when one of Cazares’s nephews saw a large figure curled up near the back.

“He just started screaming, ‘It’s a cat! It’s a big cat!'” Cazares said.

They all ran inside and waited as the adults called Animal Services. Once the initial shock wore off, they warmed up to the big cat.

“It actually looked really pretty,” Cazarez said. “You never see something like that, especially that close,” said Cazares.

No one was hurt in the home. When authorities arrived, Texas Park and Wildlife officials took the lead after consulting with the City of El Paso’s Animal Services and the Texas Health Dept., both of which said they had no tranquilizer gun available and asked the TPWD to respond because of the safety issue, according to TPWD officials in a statement on Tuesday.

“They told us it had rabies,” said Cazarez. “But it was just laying there, just chilling. It was actually sleeping when we saw it, you could tell it wasn’t going to do any harm. I don’t know why they had to kill it.”

ABC-7 called representatives with Texas Parks and Wildlife on Monday, but the office was closed for the President’s Day holiday. A city spokeswman said the decision to kill the cat came from Texas Parks and Wildlife but added the results of a rabies test are pending.

Cazares said she wished more efforts had been made to tranquilize the animal before putting it down.

Last May, an El Paso Police Department officer and a Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission official shot a mountain lion in a Central El Paso car wash after authorities tried to tranquilize it twice. The mountain lion had roamed through some buildings, including a private school.

Days later, a bobcat was spotted in Northeast El Paso and in June, a mountain lion was sighted near a central El Paso apartment complex.

It’s unclear how all the big cats ended up roaming through El Paso’s streets or where they came from.