{"id":548811,"date":"2026-01-28T08:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T08:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/548811\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T08:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T08:56:13","slug":"mountain-lion-roams-san-francisco-streets-before-being-captured","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/548811\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain lion roams San Francisco streets before being captured"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 A 77-pound mountain lion set off a scramble Tuesday as it wandered through San Francisco\u2019s wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood before finally being captured as onlookers safely peered from their home windows or stood across the street.<\/p>\n

Dozens of officials worked to capture and tranquilize the male cat after warnings were issued advising people to slowly back away if they encountered it.<\/p>\n

The wild cat was first seen Monday morning. <\/p>\n

Roxanne Blank was being dropped off outside her home around 3 a.m. Monday, when she saw the big cat nonchalantly walking down the streets and going up her apartment stoop, about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from where the animal was caught Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a dog at first, but then I saw the tail and realized that it\u2019s not a dog. Then it tripped the light sensor, and that\u2019s when I saw its face and was like, \u2018Oh, my God, it\u2019s a mountain lion!\u2019\u201d Blank said Tuesday. <\/p>\n

She said she calmly pulled out her phone and began recording as the mountain lion \u201clocked eyes\u201d with her for over five minutes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were just staring at each other, but I felt really calm, and I felt like maybe the mountain lion was calm,\u201d she said. \u201cI just stood there in awe of like, \u2018Oh, my God, I can\u2019t believe this is happening to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, the wild cat began walking down the stairs and took off running when Blank\u2019s dog started barking from inside her apartment, Blank said. She then called 911. <\/p>\n

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Madrey Hilton took video of the animal later Monday morning and alerted authorities, she told the San Francisco Chronicle. <\/p>\n

The mountain lion was found Tuesday hiding in a garden between two apartment buildings, San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Mariano Elias said. Authorities shot the feline with tranquilizers three times \u201cto make sure it was completely unconscious,\u201d Elias said. \u201cThey covered his eyes and bound its paws, just to make sure it wasn\u2019t going to run anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veterinarians with the San Francisco Zoo then examined the cat before it was placed in a cage. It will undergo further testing to ensure it is healthy and then released to the wild, Elias said.<\/p>\n

The 2-year-old male cougar was tagged and last spotted in Saratoga, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of San Francisco, he said. Cougars, mountain lions, panthers and pumas are the same cat species \u2014 puma concolor, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance website.<\/p>\n

Mountain lion sightings are rare in San Francisco, where coyotes abound. <\/p>\n

In 2020, a young mountain lion was spotted<\/a> sleeping in a planter box along a normally busy street and looking at his reflection in the glass of an office tower in downtown San Francisco. The animal was later safely captured and released into the wild.<\/p>\n

Experts say the animals come up along the Pacific coast from the hills south of the city, but eventually find their way back to the wilderness.<\/p>\n

Angela Yip, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s Animal Care and Control, said there was no threat to the public. <\/p>\n

Mountain lions also live in Los Angeles,<\/a> one of the world\u2019s only megacities of 10 million-plus, where large felines thrive by breeding, hunting and maintaining territory within urban boundaries. <\/p>\n

Carlos Almendarez, who lives with his family across the street from where the mountain lion was caught in San Francisco, said the wild cat was all everyone was talking about in his neighborhood, but that didn\u2019t deter him or his running club from going on a run Tuesday morning. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt probably would had been a smarter idea to not go on a run, but we were in a group, so I figured it would be safe,\u201d said Almendarez, who is from Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn LA, mountain lions are local celebrities,\u201d he said. \u201cHere I\u2019ve seen coyotes right in front of the building, in the park, on the sidewalk, but I had never heard of mountain lions.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 A 77-pound mountain lion set off a scramble Tuesday as it wandered through San…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":548812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[241065,3425,276,241066,4653,10109,10106,168,57,240900,1667,15228,241064,2750,159,235115,61,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-548811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-angela-yip","9":"tag-animals","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-carlos-almendarez","12":"tag-cats","13":"tag-climate","14":"tag-climate-and-environment","15":"tag-domestic-news","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-mariano-elias","18":"tag-mountain-lions","19":"tag-oddities","20":"tag-roxanne-blank","21":"tag-san-francisco","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-send-to-apple-news","24":"tag-u-s-news","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115971895003150716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}