A wild cat native to Africa and Asia is captured in a Chicago suburb

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. –

A wild cat that’s native to Africa and parts of Asia has been captured after roaming around a Chicago suburb.

Authorities used a pole with a cord on the end to lasso and cage the caracal Tuesday from beneath the deck of a home in Hoffman Estates, about 33 miles (53 kilometres) northwest of Chicago.

The large cat was first spotted in the area last week.

A Wisconsin animal sanctuary was expected to pick up the unharmed caracal, which will “have a healthy and happy life far away from Hoffman Estates,” police said.

Jan Hoffman-Rau told WBBM-TV that she took photos of the cat in her backyard on Friday morning.

“Then it starts coming up on my deck, jumped on my deck, actually looked at me through the window,” she said.

Native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and India, caracals prey on rodents, other small mammals and birds. It’s not clear how the caracal came to be on the loose in Hoffman Estates.

In 2021, a suburban Detroit woman was ticketed and ordered to find another home for her four African caracals after one of the wild cats escaped from its enclosure.

Police in Bloomington, Ill., shot and killed a caracal in 2019 after it had escaped from its owner and scratched a woman and her daughter. That cat also tried to attack a medium-sized dog. The caracal was shot after acting erratically and approaching police and a group of bystanders.