A captured leopard receives a medical checkup at the Beit Dagan Veterinary Hospital, near Tel Aviv, May 28, 2007. [Reuters]

"He jumped on the leopard and pinned him to the floor, then his wife called us so we could take it away," Amram Zabari, a local park ranger who rushed to the scene, said on Tuesday.

Arthur De Mosh, a 45-year-old tour guide at the college near Kibbutz Sde Boker in southern Israel, was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the leopard trying to eat his cat.

He freed the pet, which survived the ordeal, from the leopard's clutches.

A local veterinarian, Ronnie King, told Israel's Channel 10 television the leopard was suffering from malnutrition and probably entered the home looking for easy prey.

Experts said only 10 leopards live in the wild in Israel. The animal captured at the college was transferred to a veterinary hospital for treatment and then taken to a nature reserve.