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LUCERNE VALLEY, Calif. — A photographer acted quickly and snapped a rare picture of a mountain lion perched on top of a utility pole in a Southern California neighborhood Tuesday.
The mountain lion climbed the 35-foot high wooden utility pole sometime Tuesday afternoon about 2 miles south of the appropriately named Cougar Buttes on East End Road, according to the Victorville Daily Press. A resident who lives across the street from the utility pole told the Daily Press that the mountain lion was startled by children screaming on a school bus.
"They were yelling with excitement and the big cat scurried up the pole," the Daily Press reported.
While mountain lions are not uncommon in the area, Department of Fish and Wildlife official Andrew Hughan told KTLA News that no one he had talked to had ever remembered seeing one on top of a utility pole before.
Mountain lion on a pole prompts Hesperia Animal Control to release warning http://t.co/9DCp0ieGbHpic.twitter.com/NjAlpchHrR — NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) September 30, 2015
Two California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers parked several hundred feet from the utility pole and requested people to stay out of the area. The mountain lion climbed down the pole sometime Tuesday night, the Daily Press said.
If the mountain lion had not come down on its own, getting it down would have posed a challenge for Fish and Wildlife officials because tranquilizing the animal could have caused it to fall to the ground or into the power lines, Hughan told KTLA News.
Another mountain lion sighting caused a brief lockdown Wednesday at an elementary school in Hesperia, about 20 miles away from Lucerne Valley.
Mountain lions are active year-round and have extremely large territories, according to Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest officials. They sometimes roam more than 20 miles a day in search of food and have been known to enter residential areas. People should never approach a mountain lion that enters a residential neighborhood, but should contact Division of Wildlife Resources officials immediately.
