SF mountain lion mystery: Is it still in Golden Gate Park?

The elusive mountain lion may still be in San Francisco.

On Saturday evening, a massive police and ranger presence swarmed the Panhandle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park after a park ranger confirmed that a mountain lion was up a tree. 

By dawn Sunday, the officials had all left. The lion, they said, had also departed — for a more suitable area.

On Sunday afternoon, another sighting of the lion — unconfirmed by animal experts — was reported, on a path near 44th Avenue and Fulton Street, according to city officials who have been following the incident. That’s on the edge of Golden Gate Park, which was busy Sunday with people enjoying the beautiful day.

Here are key questions about the lion, and answers as far as we know them.

No one knows. Krysten Kellum, a spokesperson for the Department of Fish and Wildlife,  said the mountain lion is expected to follow a wildlife corridor back to its natural habitat on its own.

Such a route would take the lion through Golden Gate Park, which it presumably already traversed before it arrived at the Panhandle, and out to the coast, whereupon it would hopefully turn south.

The lion may be doing that. The (unconfirmed) sighting at 3 p.m. Sunday was less than a half-mile from the coast. 

Animal Care and Control asked that any further sightings should be reported at (415) 554-9400.

On Saturday morning, Animal Care and Control officers got an initial report from a person walking a dog, said Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for the group. The person who submitted the report described glimpsing the lion climbing into a tree with dense foliage. To confirm the initial report, rangers from the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and Animal Care and Control monitored the tree the rest of the day Saturday — and around 8:30 p.m. they spied the lion, according to Campbell. About a half-hour later, San Francisco sent out an alert warning people to avoid the area and to stay home if they live nearby.

Officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, who arrived late Saturday night, never saw the lion. Neither did the San Francisco Police Department, whose officers arrived around 10 p.m.

Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said they are not aware of anyone seeing the lion come down from the tree.

However, Animal Care and Control said the lion was able to “safely exit the situation overnight” Saturday. The group said it was a “best-case scenario” that the lion was “in a natural setting with a safe corridor back to the wild.” The lion, ACC said, “was not cornered, as prior lion visitors have been, and was able to leave the scene peacefully.”

It was not clear when the lion left the tree, or why no one would have seen it. After the initial confirmation of the sighting, there may have been windows of time when the lion was being given some space. Authorities’ presence then ramped up significantly late Saturday night, with police vehicles continuing to arrive around 11 p.m. and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which appears to have been prepared to take the lead on the issue, not arriving until around then. CDFW officials said they never saw the lion. 

Kellum said police determined the mountain lion wasn’t still in the tree after using thermal imaging drones. However, Campbell said the dense foliage on the tree could have obscured the heat signature from the animal that the drone would otherwise pick up. In other words, it’s conceivable the lion never left the tree until after police and other officials packed up in the wee hours of Saturday night.

“There was no reason to dart it, and that would be unsafe in the area it was in,” ACC said by text, citing expertise from CDFW. “Contrast a tree in a park with being stuck and trapped between buildings like the one in January. The best pathway was to allow it the space and calm environment to move away naturally. They are elusive animals that are good at hiding.”