Report: Owner of Buckhead Lynx Has Other Exotic Cats, History of Cat Escapes

Photo Credit: Bernard Landgraf/Wikimedia

The owner of the Eurasian lynx which attacked a woman in Buckhead on Tuesday has several other exotic cats, some of which have escaped from the owner’s home in the past, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) told the AJC that Fred Boyajian is a licensed wild animal breeder and owns nine exotic cats. The DNR added that they have records of at least two escapes by Boyajian’s cats.

In June of 2006, the AJC reported that one of Boyajian’s African serval cats had escaped from the home and had been missing for about a week. The AJC also reported that in June of 2004, a lynx owned by Boyajian disappeared for two weeks before he was able to recapture it.

In 2009, Boyajian posted a message on a website for owners of exotic cats detailing a lawsuit he had filed against the City of Atlanta seeking relief against an ordinance which prohibits operating a business without a business licence. The lawsuit says that Boyajian has been raising tame exotic cats in the city since 1977.

“I refuse to be run-off by municipal intimidation or financial impracticality in my retirement years,” Boyajian posted on the exotic cat owners’ website.

“This lawsuit will have ramifications nationwide as the issues involved are similar to many others, past and present, where governments have attempted to arbitrarily marginalize or deny citizens of their right to own exotics [sic] animals.”

The U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Boyajian in the 2009 lawsuit, ordering the city to stop enforcing the ordinance on Boyajian.

Atlanta police told Patch on Tuesday that a woman received bite wounds to her head while attempting to feed Boyajian’s Eurasian lynx at the home in the 3700 block of Paces Valley Road. Boyajian was out of town and had arranged for the lynx to be fed while he was gone, Woolfolk said.

A friend of the woman called 911 at 1:19 p.m. and reported that she was bleeding heavily from her head and that the lynx was in its cage.

The woman was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, police said. Her condition is currently unknown.