Home security camera captures footage of 113 pound male juvenile cougar in Mission Viejo
For the last two nights, Mission Viejo residents have come close to a mountain lion that is no stranger to Orange County.
It's been nearly a month since shoppers near Sand Canyon and Irvine Center Driver got a broad daylight scare from the big cat, as it streaked past an Irvine hair salon and a brewery before cruising through the front door of an office.
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"I was about to go take a photo and then I heard police sirens outside and that stopped me in my tracks," Mark Waterhouse, who saw the cougar in March, told CBSLA at the time.
The 113 pound male, dubbed M317, was tranquilized and released into the wild. A GPS tracking collar was also put around its neck, which periodically sends back data of its movements.
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"So, I'm sure it came up the slopes, came down right here and passed by this door. I was sitting right in there," said Diana Tarzi, a Mission Viejo resident whose security cameras captured footage of the cougar.
The director of University of California, Davis's Mountain Lion Project, who is tracking the animal, confirmed that it was M317 that was near Tarzi's home Tuesday night.
It's also the same mountain lion that came face to face with mountain biker Brett Stivaletta Wednesday night at around 7:30 p.m., as he was riding on a trail in the Trabuco Arroyo in Mission Viejo. Stivaletta said he rounded a corner and saw the cat.
The collared cougar jumped away, and Stivaletta said he also yelled at it to scare it and never took his eyes off the mountain lion.
According to experts, the mountain lion is trying to find a territory of his own, but there are freeways to contend with and he keeps running into development when he needs open space.
"He's kind of following these greenbelts and just winding up in less than opportune places for a mountain lion, but he hasn't done anything, shown outward aggression towards people," Lt. Kyle Werner, with Mission Viejo Animal Services, told CBSLA.
The cougar is estimated to be about 21 months old and at this age, experts said, he is doing what's known as dispersing, meaning separating from their mother and finding their own place in the world.
