Mountain lion found in San Francisco neighborhood released in Santa Cruz Mountains
A mountain lion who was captured in a busy San Francisco neighborhood has been released back into the wild, state wildlife officials said.
On Wednesday, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said the lion was released into what they described as a "suitable" habitat in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which spans more than 1,000 square miles.
The agency shared video of the cat being released from a metal enclosure early Wednesday morning.
San Francisco Animal Care and Control warned residents on Monday about the mountain lion, after he was spotted near Lafyette Park in the city's Pacific Heights neighborhood the previous night.
Madrey Hilton told CBS News Bay Area in an interview Monday that she saw the mountain lion between Sacramento and Gough streets as she was driving to work and recorded the encounter.
"It was super big too, so I knew it wasn't like just a stray cat or anything, and it kind of walked up the road, like towards like where my car is," Hilton said. "And so immediately I got out my phone to record because I wanted to send a video to my friends."
On Tuesday morning, animal control officials located the animal between two homes near California and Octavia streets. The animal was tranquilized and was loaded onto a pickup around noon.
Following his capture, biologists with Fish and Wildlife evaluated the animal, identified as a male weighing 77 pounds and estimated to be about two years of age. The animal was also fitted with a GPS tracking collar as part of the UC Santa Cruz Puma Project.
Richie King, a wildlife biologist with the Puma Project, said he was part of the team who originally tagged the mountain lion near Rancho San Antonio when he was about 5 weeks old. The same mountain lion was spotted in a backyard in Saratoga in September.
"For the most part, he's being pushed around by other males who have these home ranges that aren't letting him go in there. Really, he doesn't have much of a choice about where he's going and he just happens to end up in these bad situations," King told CBS News Bay Area.
In the event of a mountain lion encounter, wildlife officials urged people to wave their arms and attempt to scare the animal away. People are urged not to approach mountain lions, to back away slowly and to keep children and pets close by.
Mountain lion sightings and encounters can be reported to the Department of Fish and Wildlife through their Wildlife Incident Reporting System.