One of California’s thousands of mountain lions roamed the depths of the human city of Irvine on Tuesday, controlling the animals there on a wild hunt that ended in an office building, where the big cat finally succumbed to the effects of a tranquilizer arrow. .
NBC News Los Angeles mentioned Those footage, taken by passers-by and security cameras, showed the two-year-old of a large size as he scurried across a sunny street and past a hair salon.
In the end the lion ran towards the offices of Morse Micro. Mark Waterhouse, a visiting employee from the UK, initially said he wasn’t sure what kind of large animal was causing a commotion outside the building.
“The word mountain lion didn’t get into the vocabulary,” Waterhouse told NBC Los Angeles.
That was – until the lion walked inside.
“There were sirens outside and he slammed the door that was locked and made his way into the office and walked right next to me and right into the lab,” Waterhouse told NBC News Wednesday.
He added, “At the time, I didn’t know he had been calmed down. The officers had just gone into it with one arrow – he might have been a bit sleepy.”
Shortly after the animal was moved, it was anesthetized and placed on a stretcher.
No one was hurt, including the mountain lion. Officials said that because it is otherwise healthy, the young, unmarked animal is a candidate for re-release into the wild.
Mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, are widespread throughout the United States and have ranges from 30 to 125 square miles, according to the San Diego Zoo.
Before European colonization, the animals were spread from coast to coast, but after centuries of hunting, their range today is confined to remote areas, particularly in the west.
The zoo wrote: “As more people moved into mountain lion territories, the number of encounters with these cats increased. Often this is ‘big news’ and frightens people. But overall, a mountain lion encounter is an unlikely event.”
Mountain lions often make news when they are killed due to rare attacks on humans: one was killed after it attacked a child in Calabasas, California, in August 2021; another was killed after attacking a Larimer County, Colorado resident and deputy chief of police in March 2020; Three others were killed in Arizona after feeding on human remains they did not kill.
In 2019, a Colorado man made national news for fighting and strangling an attacking mountain lion with his bare hands.
Earlier this month, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte made headlines for shooting and killing a mountain lion wearing a National Park Service tracking collar.
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