OCOEE, Fla. – Animal control officers responded to reports of a wounded but dangerous cougar on the loose at the sprawling compound of Tiger Woods in a predawn incident today that marked the latest bizarre episode to befall the star-crossed golfing lothario. The officers were dispatched over fears that the cougar, though cornered and injured, could pose a danger to others within the residence.

Shortly after the animal control officers arrived around 2:30 this morning, the apparent gravity of the situation became clear when a TEAT squad was deployed. TEAT, or Tactical Elimination of Animal Terrorists, is a designator appended to heavily armed and specially trained anti-animal assets.

The use of TEAT squads, which comprise the powerful paramilitary wing of the Southern Florida Animal Control Dept, is often controversial. Neighboring homeowners who witnessed the incident were quick to voice concern.

“They used too much force,” said Belladonna Mayflower, who leases a 74-acre estate located on the third hole of Wood’s residential golf course, “and for what?”

“You could see them creeping all over the place like evil ninjas, and they had those guns with the laser-sight thingies and lots of grappling hooks,” she added.

But Sergeant Dung Tenet, on-scene commander of the TEAT unit that was deployed, defended his squad’s actions. “Any animal, especially a cougar, that is cornered, is a threat. That threat level quintuples – maybe even doubles – when that animal is injured, which we believed to be the case this morning.”

Tenet added that ultimately, nothing was killed, other than “a few possums and a gator, and a hell of a lot of caladiums, but only because they were in our L.Z.”

“We may have taken out a few undocumented illegals, too, but that don’t count because they ain’t animals,” he added.

Eventually, Tenet was forced to surrender tactical command of the scene to civilian emergency-response officials when it became clear that the term “cougar” did not refer to an actual animal but to a middle-aged woman who was seeking medical attention on the premises.

“We almost had her captured,” said Tenet, who said his troops had driven the terrified cougar into a moat that surrounds a 16th century Austrian castle that the golf wunderkind had purchased, disassembled, shipped to the U.S. and reconstructed in his backyard. “But then we were ordered to stand down - it was really frustrating”

Although details are being closely held by officials involved, a law enforcement source confirmed that there were “misunderstandings on multiple levels. The call went out that a middle-aged woman was in distress at Tiger’s place, and several agencies dispatched on report of a wounded cougar there, so it was really difficult to determine which should be the responding agency.”