Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
DRAPER — A family in Draper had a real shock Saturday when a huge mountain lion suddenly showed up in their back yard and walked right up to their back door.
The incident was all captured on their home security cameras.
"Wow, shock! Also, scary and exciting," said Vanessa Meyers, who saw it from her bedroom window as it was running out of their yard. "Then, I just saw this thing running and it was really huge."
The Meyers family live in the Suncrest area of Draper, high on the hills. Their back yard has a beautiful view of the Wasatch Mountains, Utah County and Utah Lake.
They are used to seeing plenty of wildlife.
"Lots of deer. We do have lots of coyotes as well," said homeowner Matt Meyer. "We also have big porcupines."
But they never expected to see a huge mountain lion show up in their back yard on a bright, sunny Saturday morning.
"Just huge. It was really amazing," said Vanessa, who first heard coyotes howling in her back yard.
As seen on their home security camera, the mountain lion walked right along their back fence, with several coyotes in tow. It appeared the coyotes may have been chasing it. It then went through the Meyers open gate, into their back yard, and up to their door. It went along the side of their house, appearing to try and get away from the coyotes. Once it realized it couldn't get through, it then ran back out the back yard fence.
"That's just absolutely incredible. We came from South Africa four years ago and we never expected to see anything like this," said David. "Just going through our gate, standing in front of our property — just amazing."
David said he posted the video on the Suncrest Facebook page and was told by long timers that this is the first time they know of that anyone has actually captured video of a mountain lion in the area.
The Meyers' daughter was upstairs and also saw it run off.
"It had big muscles on its back. It was really scary," Lara said.
A lively Saturday morning for the Meyers, who are all still in a little shock and shaken up, but say life will continue as normal.
"Yes, there is a risk of always having wild animals, but I think people accept that risk. That's a risk you make," David said.
"I'm not scared at all. No," Vanessa said.
