Watch Mountain Lion Prowl Peacock Cage In Malibu

MALIBU, CA – The founder of a horse sanctuary got up close and personal with a predator perched in a tree Thursday morning. Claire Staples went to feed her peacocks at Skydog Sanctuary, and was shocked to find that she was dangerously close to a mountain lion sitting on a tree branch inside the cage.

Unfortunately, two of her peacocks who were saved from a livestock auction fell prey to the predator.

"Seriously? Seriously? What are you doing in there?" Staples said to the lion on video.

In the three years on the Malibu property, Staples has cared for many different kinds of abused and neglected animals, including horses, peacocks, and an emu – but has never had a run-in with a mountain lion, KTLA reported.

"You ate my peacocks, didn't you?" Staples asked the animal. "Oh my goodness, why did you do that? You be a good kitty, don't be mad."

Staples wrote on Facebook that Dream, a horse at the sanctuary, wasn't worried or agitated. She called California Fish and Wildlife in hopes that they would retrieve the cat, but she wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be killed, she told the news station.

"I've never seen anything so beautiful up close that is really, genuinely a wild animal," Staples told KTLA. "He must have realized they were coming and wanted to stay wild, so he's somewhere out there."

Even though two of the sanctuary's peacocks didn't survive, Staples wrote on Facebook that it's the price of living in nature and amongst prey animals, and Skydog Sanctuary wishes the mountain lion "nothing but a long life and happiness."

Image via Shutterstock / zaranda