A serval cat that was spotted on the loose in Sooke, B.C., over the weekend was apparently struck and killed by a pickup truck.

Pictures of the dead feline lying in the back of a truck were posted on Monday on a Facebook account belonging to Peter Henry.

"I ran over this exotic serval cat last night...waiting for conversion officers to contact me!! Kinda shocking when it jumped out in front of the truck!" he wrote in one post.

The cat is believed to have been the same one that escaped from a home in the southern Vancouver Island community back in August. It generated a social media buzz after being photographed in Otter Point earlier this month.

Serval cat breeder Doug Nelson, says he sold the serval to its owners, but it had escaped several times over the years and he regrets selling the animal to them.

"I was heartbroken, something that you'd hand-raised. It would be like having your child hit by a car and killed," said Nelson.

Servals are one of several wild cat species not covered by B.C'.s exotic animal laws. Nelson says they are normally docile and affectionate pets.

Image | hi-african-serval-cat-12110

Caption: Serval cats are wildcats that were first domesticated in Africa.

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