Mountain lion roams posh San Francisco neighborhood before being captured

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/01/2026 (254 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A 77-pound mountain lion set off a scramble Tuesday as it wandered through San Francisco’s wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood before finally being captured as onlookers safely peered from their home windows or stood across the street.

Dozens of officials worked to capture and tranquilize the male cat after warnings were issued advising people to slowly back away if they encountered it.

The wild cat was first seen Monday morning.

Roxanne Blank was being dropped off outside her home around 3 a.m. Monday, when she saw the big cat nonchalantly walking down the streets and going up her apartment stoop, about half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from where the animal was caught Tuesday.

“I thought it was a dog at first, but then I saw the tail and realized that it’s not a dog. Then it tripped the light sensor, and that’s when I saw its face and was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s a mountain lion!’” Blank said Tuesday.

She said she calmly pulled out her phone and began recording as the mountain lion “locked eyes” with her for over five minutes.

“We were just staring at each other, but I felt really calm, and I felt like maybe the mountain lion was calm,” she said. “I just stood there in awe of like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe this is happening to me.’”

A few minutes later, the wild cat began walking down the stairs and took off running when Blank’s dog started barking from inside her apartment, Blank said. She then called 911.

Madrey Hilton took video of the animal later Monday morning and alerted authorities, she told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The mountain lion was found Tuesday hiding in a garden between two apartment buildings, San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Mariano Elias said. Authorities shot the feline with tranquilizers three times “to make sure it was completely unconscious,” Elias said. “They covered his eyes and bound its paws, just to make sure it wasn’t going to run anywhere.”

Veterinarians with the San Francisco Zoo then examined the cat before it was placed in a cage. It will undergo further testing to ensure it is healthy and then released to the wild, Elias said.

The 2-year-old male cougar was tagged and last spotted in Saratoga, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of San Francisco, he said. Cougars, mountain lions, panthers and pumas are the same cat species — puma concolor, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance website.

Mountain lion sightings are rare in San Francisco, where coyotes abound.

In 2020, a young mountain lion was spotted sleeping in a planter box along a normally busy street and looking at his reflection in the glass of an office tower in downtown San Francisco. The animal was later safely captured and released into the wild.

Experts say the animals come up along the Pacific coast from the hills south of the city, but eventually find their way back to the wilderness.

Angela Yip, a spokesperson for the city’s Animal Care and Control, said there was no threat to the public.

Mountain lions also live in Los Angeles, one of the world’s only megacities of 10 million-plus, where large felines thrive by breeding, hunting and maintaining territory within urban boundaries.

Carlos Almendarez, who lives with his family across the street from where the mountain lion was caught in San Francisco, said the wild cat was all everyone was talking about in his neighborhood, but that didn’t deter him or his running club from going on a run Tuesday morning.

“It probably would had been a smarter idea to not go on a run, but we were in a group, so I figured it would be safe,” said Almendarez, who is from Los Angeles.

“In LA, mountain lions are local celebrities,” he said. “Here I’ve seen coyotes right in front of the building, in the park, on the sidewalk, but I had never heard of mountain lions.”