Negev resident Arthur Dimosh trapped a Leopard Sunday night after the feline had crept into his bedroom in Sde Boker while chasing a cat.

Dimosh awoke from the barking of his dog, to find himself face to face with a leopard. He immediately leapt on the animal, grabbed him by the neck and asked his wife to call the Nature and Parks Authority (NPA).

Officials from the NPA arrived shortly after and managed to get the leopard into a cage by first transferring him into a trash bin.

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In the last few weeks the leopard has entered the desert community to prey on cats and dogs. NPA officials staked out the area in the past few nights in an attempt to scare the leopard off with firecrackers.

Authorities think that the leopard has begun hunting inside communities because it has found it difficult to catch prey in the wild, a possible indication that the leopard is suffering from physical problems.

It is because of this that the leopard was taken to the Beit Dagan Veterinary Hospital where it will be determined if the leopard is capable of returning to the wild.

Experts asses that there are eight to ten leopards left in the Judea Desert and Negev. In the past some leopards were tagged with transmitters, however all of these leopards have died. Today there are no leopards in the wild tagged with a transmitter.

In the Judea Desert there apparently remains only one leopard, who occasionally wanders into the Ein Gedi Kibbutz. In the past few years, there has not been a organized and continuous study of the leopards in the desert so there is only partial information about them.

The leopards lived in other countries in the region in the past, however seem to have only survived in Israel.