Police Picket Line to Save a Lion

On Tuesday night, police were called to a neighborhood in Pleasant Hill (California) after a mountain lion was spotted in the area. Local residents did not want to see the lion killed; many were still outraged from the shooting six weeks ago of a mountain lion in Berkeley (about 20 miles west of Pleasant Hill). Wanting to find a way to “shoo” the cat back into the wild, the local police along with Contra Costa County Animal Control and California Department of Fish and Game officers banned together and created a picket line to deter the lion away from the residential area. Although curious at times, mountain lions generally prefer to avoid people and will walk back into the wild if given time and the space to do so. In this case, it definitely worked. The lion left the area and was later seen away from town, likely heading towards the deer-filled hills of Briones Regional Park….Mtn Lion Foundation

The police in Pleasant Hill successfully coaxed a mountain lion away from a residential neighborhood on Tuesday night. The cougar was first spotted at 8:59 p.m. sitting on the hood of a vehicle on the 100 block of Bramblewood Lane, according to Bay City News Service.

Police first saw the cougar in some residential landscaping, near an open space. Local officers, with the help of the Contra Costa County Animal Control and the California Department of Fish and Game, erected a picket line to get puma away from the homes.

The animal did not behave aggressively. It was later spotted in the open space.

As The Bay Citizen has reported, there has been an increase in mountain lion sightings in the Bay Area recently, since Berkeley police gunned down a big cat in the Gourmet Ghetto in late August.

bigcatrescue.org