Closure Claws : Snarling Bobcat Quickly Empties South County Store

Curled up and sleepy-eyed, the furry creature in the shop window Tuesday might have been a stuffed animal.

But look again.

A real live bobcat had stumbled onto a South County shopping center and, after frightening the clientele out of the local Parties Plus store, it holed up in the front window drawing the curious for 2 1/2 hours before animal control officers went in and got it out.

The 10-plus-pound, brown and gray, spotted, striped and decidedly untamed bobcat scampered through the front door of Parties Plus store about 11 a.m. A woman screamed, others fled and owner Jim Knasiak attempted to catch the animal.

“That was a mistake,” Knasiak said. “The thing charged me. It leaped at least 6 feet high and scared me to death.” Then it dashed from one end of the store to the other, finally finding a secure space behind the front counter, up against the shop window.

“It just dashed through the open door at about 11 a.m.,” said Knasiak. “I’ve had a store like this for 10 years and had birds, parakeets and dogs come in, but never anything like this.”

County animal control officers described the bobcat as “a juvenile, between six months and a year” and probably a female, who was just looking for a way out of the store, and the neighborhood. It was trapped unhurt, caged and later released to the wilderness in Holy Jim Canyon near Rancho Santa Margarita.

When the unexpected guest arrived, six or seven customers were wandering around the shop in the Olympiad Plaza, reading cards and just browsing, Knasiak said. Then the creature came in and started “running all over the store,” acting like, well, a wild animal, but nothing anybody recognized, said Kathy Kiper of Mission Viejo, who was working the cash register.

“Jim said, ‘Is that a cat?’ ” Kiper recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ ”

There was screaming as customers fled. After his aborted attempt to reclaim his store, Knasiak too escaped, mingling with the curious patrons outside his little shop, but making occasional forays inside to reconnoiter.

Knasiak had reason to be scared, said Robert S. Huebner of the animal control division. “The cat has claws over an inch long,” he said.

But Huebner, who along with fellow officers Kathy J. Miller and K.R. Whelan, trapped the bobcat, said the animal was probably just as frightened as the people. It may have been flushed from a field by workers at a construction site across Olympiad Road, where Mission Viejo is expanding eastward, he said.

Bobcats as a rule don’t come near people and rarely create any disturbances, said Mark McDorman, chief of animal control field services. They’re independent, like house cats, grow to 30 pounds while living on whatever they can catch--birds, mice, or small rodents, he said.

“They usually keep to themselves off in the woods somewhere,” McDorman said. “We really don’t run across them. This one was probably disturbed by the work there.”

The prognosis is good for the cat, which should “make out just fine,” he said.

After it was all over, the main thing Knasiak was disturbed about was the loss of sales for the day. He had to close his store, decorated in a Valentine’s Day theme, while the bobcat was trapped inside and can only hope that those customers will soon return.

“Business has been slow. Finally I get some customers in here and they get scared half to death,” he said.