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The hunter becomes the hunted.
A terrifying caught-on-camera attack shows the moment a Wisconsin teen had his arm mauled by a bobcat while out turkey hunting.
Carson Bender was set up at the base of a tree while hunting on private land near Nekoosa — about 100 miles north of Madison — when he turned around to find the fierce predator stalking him.
The 19-year-old hunter quickly whipped out his phone to record the encounter as the bobcat slowly inched closer to him, video posted on his Instagram page shows.
“I pan over with the phone, and the bobcat is just staring at me,” he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I was like, uh-oh.”
The cat locked in on Bender for a few tense moments — then, in the blink of an eye, lunged at him, grabbing the teen by the arm before the video cut to black.
Bender said he was able to quickly shake the cat off him before it ran off.
“Found out I’m good at calling cats and turkeys!” Bender joked on his Instagram post.
Bender said he had spotted the bobcat — estimated to weigh around 25 pounds — shortly before recording the video, but wasn’t sure what to do, and was in the middle of lining up a shot on a turkey when it appeared.
Despite the commotion caused by the attack, Bender said the turkey he was hunting didn’t scare off, and after shaking off the mauling, he was able to take a shot but missed the bird.
“Missed a bird three minutes later at 35 yards, then headed to the doctor’s office. Just a few scratches on the shoulder,” he wrote on Instagram.
As frightening as the encounter was, Bender said he never lost his cool.
“It might sound dumb, but I wanted to kill that turkey that was strutting in,” Bender told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“It was a lot of action in just a minute or so, but I never really felt threatened and went with my instincts.”
The teen hunter was so determined to bag his turkey that he was back in the same spot the very next morning after getting patched up from the bobcat attack.
Bobcats will occasionally investigate turkey calls, according to wildlife experts.
However, actual physical contact of this kind is extremely rare, with the animal typically detecting that something is wrong and retreating before any interaction with humans occurs.
Since 1990, bobcats have been responsible for only 26 human deaths across the US — 21 adults and five children — with an additional 275 maulings recorded as of 2025, according to Big Cat Rescue.
with Post wires
English (US)