SANTA MONICA, Calif. (CNN, KYMA) – California wildlife officials tracked and captured a mountain lion in a Santa Monica neighborhood Friday.<\/p>\n
A mountain lion made itself at home in a neighborhood in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden it came around the corner from the alley and was walking half a block…was walking straight at us,” said Mujon Baghai, a resident.<\/p>\n
Residents caught their first glimpse of the feline Friday morning near 14th Street.<\/p>\n
“As soon as it clocked us though, it got scared and went back the other direction, back into the alley,” Baghai shared.<\/p>\n
A neighbor saw the unexpected visitor lying down in the backyard peering through the bushes.<\/p>\n
Aerial footage captured the animal running through a row of trash cans, knocking one over before bolting down an alley.<\/p>\n
Then, another video shows a mountain lion sprinting down a sidewalk as officials work to track its movements.<\/p>\n
“I think we all don’t want the mountain lion to be here because of the safety of the kids and the people, but a lot of concern that the mountain lion won’t be safely brought back to the mountains and where they live,” said another resident.<\/p>\n
State wildlife officials, local animal control, and police responded to the area. After an hours-long effort, the mountain lion was tranquilized and taken into the care of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).<\/p>\n
CDFW says biologists had to check the cat’s health and fit it with a GPS collar before relocating it to a nearby suitable habitat.<\/p>\n
“I’m just excited that this is all happening. This is it’s great to be reminded that wild things live near you,” said Jeff, another resident.<\/p>\n
The big cat’s visit drew dozens of curious residents outside, many hoping this mountain lion’s trip through the city ends with a safe return to the wild.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully, this has a good conclusion and that he gets to be back where he’s more comfortable,” Jeff expressed.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully, they’ve successfully tranquilized it and can transport it back to the mountains,” Baghai added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA MONICA, Calif. (CNN, KYMA) – California wildlife officials tracked and captured a mountain lion in a Santa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-339467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}