A motorist traveling through the northern part of Gloucester County struck a bobcat Thanksgiving Day morning and unknowingly carried the animal all the way to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where she worked.

The bobcat remained alive and well except for a cut on its back and will be released to the area where it was hit after it heals.

According to Christie Peters, director of Richmond Animal Care & Control, the organization that handled the incident, the department received a call for service around 8 a.m. for what appeared to be a bobcat trapped in the grille of someone’s car. “Now, I will tell you, we get calls that are very far from reality at times, but when our officer, Barbara Jones, arrived on scene, to her surprise, the call was real,” Peters said. 

Peters said Officer Jones relayed that the motorist expressed she had hit “something” on the way to work, and it wasn’t until she arrived to VCU that she realized that ...