Watch: Mountain lion captured in Redwood City home backyard released in Santa Cruz Mountains
A wayward mountain lion that was captured in the backyard of a Redwood City home on Monday was released into its natural habitat in the Santa Cruz Mountains, authorities said Tuesday.
The mountain lion was spotted on Monday in Redwood City's Roosevelt neighborhood, prompting police to issue an alert urging residents to stay away and to keep their pets indoors. California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers arrived and shot the mountain lion with a tranquilizing dart and it became incapacitated in the backyard of a home on Madison Avenue near Hudson Street.
The CDFW said in a social media post that officers assessed the health of the mountain lion while it was immobilized, and found it to be a healthy female about 1 to 2 years old. The puma was fitted with a GPS-tracking collar as part of a University of California, Santa Cruz study, loaded onto a crate and taken to a spot in the Santa Cruz Mountains where it was released, the CDFW said.
The CDFW said mountain lions are very wary of humans and normally avoid populated areas but they sometimes wander into cities in search of food, and returning back to open spaces through streets and freeways can be difficult and dangerous. Authorities said this mountain lion showed no signs of aggression and was not associated with any reports of wildlife conflict.
According to the Santa Cruz Puma Project, the mountain lions that have been collared and tracked are helping researchers further understand the animals and their habitat requirements, as well as provide guidance on their movement corridors within the Santa Cruz Mountains and California Central Coast.
