Mountain Lion Sightings In 3 Santa Cruz Neighborhoods Have Residents On The Lookout

SANTA CRUZ (CBS SF) -- Santa Cruz police Friday received three separate reported sightings of a mountain lion walking by residences in central Santa Cruz, one of them on the grounds of an apartment complex only blocks from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

The reports were unusual because the lion was seen wandering far into residential areas inside Santa Cruz and not near the mountains bordering the city where the wild animals live, police Lt. Bernie Escalante said.

At 4:45 a.m., a citizen reported seeing a mountain lion in the 100 block of Sycamore Street near Pacific Avenue, about a half dozen blocks north of the Boardwalk, Escalante said.

The person said the lion was walking through an apartment complex on Sycamore, Escalante said.

Then at 6:10 a.m., a Santa Cruz city employee reported seeing a mountain lion traversing through a parking lot near the intersection of Cedar and Elm streets, a residential area about four blocks north of Sycamore.

Not long after that reported sighting, yet another person notified police that they also spotted a mountain lion in the 500 block of Lincoln Street a few blocks west of Cedar and Elm.

Police officers were sent out to look for the lion, but they never saw one, Escalante said.

The case was turned over to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, he said.

Mountain Lion