Northern News Now<\/a> that a neighbor sent the district a picture of the animal, which prompted them to activate their \u201cSECURE\u201d status and keep everyone inside at Ordean East Middle School and Congdon Elementary.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s very unusual to have to deal with a mountain lion, especially in our city, but knowing the DNR, the Duluth police, and our neighbors are looking out for our students is great,\u201d Wellens said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The secure status was lifted later in the afternoon after the school district and Duluth Police communicated with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which concluded the animal had left the area based on its behavioral patterns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Parents were notified around 2:00 p.m. that an all-clear had been issued, students were released from school as usual, and after-school programs continued as normal.<\/p>\n
Jay Hanson was picking up two of his children at Ordean East, and said he wasn\u2019t too concerned once he knew his kids were indoors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just amazing that we actually had a mountain lion in town, and that it popped up on my cell phone. It was a little alarming at first, and I kinda thought it was cool after I had seen it there,\u201d said Hanson.<\/p>\n
Hanson was confident his kids were safe, and said he\u2019s used to wild animals living in the area since moving to Duluth in 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve dealt with bears, been hiking places where there are mountain lions, and I\u2019ve let them know what to do and how to take care of them, so they were probably pretty relaxed about it,\u201d said Hanson.<\/p>\n
School administrators did notify parents to pick up students who typically walk home from school.<\/p>\n
After communicating with wildlife officials from other midwestern states, the DNR believes the wandering lion was originally tagged in Nebraska, but is wearing a tracking collar that is broken.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been tracking it, if you will, through trail cam pictures that people send or home security videos all the way back since early September,\u201d said John Erb, a Research Biologist with the Minnesota DNR. \u201cIt\u2019s been in Minnesota for nearly three months now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erb says the Mountain Lion was first spotted in Fergus Falls before heading through multiple communities including Wadena, Nisswa, Brainerd, and just five minutes from his home in Grand Rapids. He says it\u2019s not uncommon for a mountain lion to wander, especially a young male like this one, which they believe is around 2-3 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking for a mate, trying to find its own territory,\u201d said Erb. \u201cTheir habitat is somewhat mostly occupied, like the black hills or Nebraska. So if you\u2019re born there, there\u2019s that drive just like teenagers to find your own place to be the big dog or cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erb does believe that the animal won\u2019t stay put for long.<\/p>\n
\u201cOdds are this animal is not going to stay put anywhere; it\u2019s going to keep on going where it ends up,\u201d said Erb.<\/p>\n
According to the Minnesota DNR, if you are confronted by a cougar, face it directly, raise your arms to make yourself appear larger, and speak loudly and firmly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A resident captured an image of the Mountain Lion and sent it to school officials, who made sure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-330293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}