36 APRIL 2018 • FOGHORN MEMBEREXPERIENCE A BOBCAT ON THE EMPRESS? Our riverboats are in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh – a big, metropolitan city! Like any other city, there are lots of buildings, cars, people and not a lot of big expansive areas where wild animals roam free! And, for that matter, of all the places that this bobcat could have shown up, how did it makes its way onto a riverboat? The only riverboat that was sailing that morning. The whole scenario was mind-boggling. Finally, I got a call back from my husband. Everyone was safe and our friend the bobcat was not so happily in the hands of animal rescue officers. Here is what happened: It seems that while the crew was doing the safety check, one of our deckhands, Cheyenne Laux, spotted something on the third deck. Thinking it was just a domestic cat, she went and got Chief Mate Aaron Snider. Aaron took one look and said, “That’s not just a cat, it’s a bobcat!” So now the question became for the crew, how do we get this bobcat off the third deck of the Empress? Our cruise was to begin boarding 300 kids and parents to spend a few hours on a cruise with Trolls and Puppies – not a live bobcat. Always keeping in the safety of our passen- gers first and foremost, the crew closed off the third deck and immediately got everyone off the dock and inside the boat. Until the bobcat was under control no one wanted to take a chance of it running off the boat and onto a dock full of people. A call was placed to 911. I would have paid money to see the face of the person taking this call: “Hi, this is the Gateway Clipper Fleet. We have a wild bobcat on the Empress at our dock in Station Square. Can you send someone to assist us in removing the animal?” The 911 operator didn’t miss a beat and sent Pittsburgh Animal Control Officers to capture the bobcat. The great officers of the Pittsburgh Police Department were the first to arrive. As I am told, they were shocked to see this bobcat just sitting up on the third deck. As one officer told the Captain, “This is wild, a bobcat in Pittsburgh! I didn’t