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Team coverageA cougar created some chaos before she was captured in a West Jordan neighborhood. It took wildlife officers several hours to track down the cougar; luckily nobody was hurt, and the big cat is now back in the wild.
The cougar was spotted near 8400 South and 5100 West early this morning. It's not exactly what you would call cougar country. The neighborhood is several miles from the Oquirrh Mountains, where the animal probably came from. So, as you can imagine, the animal's presence caused quite a commotion.
Just as people in this West Jordan neighborhood were getting out of bed, a female cougar about 18-months old, 4 to 5 feet long and weighing more than 100 pounds began to turn some heads.
Don See said, "My wife seen it out the kitchen window and hollered at me, ‘There's a cougar in the backyard.' And I says, ‘Ah, you're full of baloney.'"
Sure enough, the first sighting was called in around 6 a.m. Dispatchers sent out a reverse 911 call to about 600 homes, warning residents to keep children and pets inside.
Thirteen-year-old Nathan Larsen saw the animal at about 10:30 a.m. "It looked straight at my mom," he said. "It was pretty scary, but ... well, not that scary."
He added, "It's crazy. It's just weird that there's a mountain lion in our neighborhood."
But some people who live outside the area of the initial sighting say they were never notified. Lori Enquist said, "It's just kind of scary to know that there was a cougar in the yard, and my kids were outside."
Meanwhile, some people had close encounters with the wild cat, others watched as she roamed from yard to yard, hopping over fences.
Lt. Scott White with the Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) said, "[She] ran down the road, through the backyards." Neighbors spotted her jumping over fences. Larsen said, "[I] seen it going over the fence right there. The dog was raising heck."
Officials with the DWR thought they had her when she was spotted in a window well, but she got away.
She wandered into another backyard. Officials say curiosity from neighbors actually helped them catch the cougar. "Luckily, we had enough people out here, enough observers that we informed ahead of time to watch for it," White said.
"It found a nice, dark, semi-secluded spot between the shed and the fence and just hung out right there," said Lt. White.
He said that's where they shot her with a tranquilizer gun around 11:15 a.m. She ran but collapsed in a front yard nearby.
White said, "This being an 18-month-old cougar, roughly, that's about the age they get kicked out of the house. So it was out wandering, trying to find its own territory is my guess."
Eventually the cougar was released back into the foothills of the Oquirrh Mountains, but her trip to the neighborhood surely won't be forgotten.
If you happen to see a cougar in the wild, wildlife officers say, don't run, slowly back away while keeping your eye on the animal, raise your hands in the air, yell and make noise if necessary. Cougars will usually run away, and attacks are pretty rare.
E-mail: wjohnson@ksl.com
E-mail: corton@ksl.com
E-mail: mrichards@ksl.com
(The Associated Press contributed to this story. Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
To see additional video of the cougar's capture, CLICK HERE.
