An unlucky cow boy had a fierce feline run-in when he was attacked by a wild leopard in Kratie province’s Sambo district on Friday.

The seven-year-old cowheard, Ros Sokhon, was tending to his cattle in a sparsely populated forest area near Boeung Char commune with a fellow cow boy, his cousin Ros Teou, when the leopard pounced.

Police said the boy was bitten by the wild cat but managed to escape its clutches.

“We did not see the wild animal that attacked the cow boy on the brushwood plain but we think that the wildlife is a leopard because the boys said that it was the size of a dog but its face was like a cat and its coat coloured with cluster spots of yellow or fawn and black,” Boeung Char commune police chief Hon Punlok told the Post yesterday.

“Currently, the boy is recovering at the provincial hospital,” he added.

The victim’s mother, Toun Saron, 42, told the Post yesterday that she was shocked to hear of the attack.

“Luckily I and my husband and some villagers arrived at the place of the attack quickly and I saw my son yelling and his legs and left hand bleeding,” she said.

She said that she felt very happy that her son was alive after the encounter but added that the boy now has nightmares about leopards.

To contact the reporter on this story: Khouth Sophak Chakrya at [email protected]