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Rabid Bobcat Bites Cyclist in Pa.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 | 12:15 PM

WILLIAMSBURG, Pa. (AP) - July 18, 2006 -- Tests have confirmed that a bobcat that bit a bicyclist was infected with rabies, the Pennsylvania Game Commission said Monday.

David P. Lewis, a 48-year-old high school music teacher, was cycling on a popular trail about four miles from Williamsburg in Blair County on Thursday when he stopped by a bench to rest.

He heard a rustling in the weeds before the bobcat sprang at him. Lewis put up his arms to fend off the animal, which bit him on the right arm and scratched him several times.

"It was aiming for my chest or something, I don't know," Lewis said Monday. "I got my arms up."

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Lewis threw off the bobcat and screamed at it to leave him alone.

He then got behind the bike and used it to fend off the animal. "When I was pretty sure it wasn't going to chase me, I got on the bike and rode home," he said.

Lewis contacted game officials and an off-duty police officer in Williamsburg, about 70 miles west of Harrisburg. The officer located the bobcat in the area of the attack and shot it to death.

Lewis began post-exposure rabies treatment on Thursday night.

"I'm not too worried about it," he said. "At least you don't have to get the shots in your belly anymore like you used to."

Only eight bobcats have tested positive for rabies in Pennsylvania since 1987.

The most recent human rabies fatality in the state was a 12-year-old Lycoming County boy who died in 1984 after being infected by a bat.

Bobcats are notoriously elusive, and most sightings in Pennsylvania are just fleeting glimpses. The Game Commission estimates the state's population of breeding-age bobcats to be about 6,000.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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