2 Mountain Lion Sightings Logged In Palo Alto

PALO ALTO, CA – Police received two reports of mountain lion sightings Saturday night in the suburbs of Palo Alto, but the animals were not located, according to authorities.

The first call came in at 8:10 p.m. from a resident on the 600 block of Wildwood Lane, about three blocks from San Francisquito Creek, who said she was driving to her house when she spotted a large animal in the street at her home, the Palo Alto Police Department said.

"Based on its size, she initially thought it was a dog," the department said. "As she drove closer, though, and her vehicle apparently startled it, the animal ran away and jumped over the fence into her backyard. She then realized it had been a mountain lion."

Responding officers checked the area but did not find the animal.

The second call, at about 11:36 p.m., came from the 700 block of Sutter Avenue, adjacent to Matadero Creek, where a woman said she was out for a walk when she spied "a large mountain lion walking down the street away from her, about 75 feet away. The animal did not display any aggressive behavior and disappeared," police said.

Officers, again, scoured the area for the wild cat without success.

The two locales are approximately one-and-a-half miles apart, and while descriptions were similar, "the size of a large dog," police said there is no certainty if the sightings were of the same mountain lion.

Palo Alto police increased overnight patrols in both neighborhoods and into Sunday, and notified the city's animal control officers, rangers from Palo Alto Open Space and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. No additional sightings were reported, police said.

"Our goal with any mountain lion sighting in town is to provide for the safety of our residents and the safety of the animal, and to safely extricate them from our neighborhood and return them to open space," the department said.

The last reported mountain lion sighting in suburban Palo Alto occurred in August 2017, when a resident reported seeing an adult and kitten in early morning hours in a large tree near the 1700 block of Webster Street, police said.

"As that was a school day, and as the sighting occurred immediately prior to the school commute beginning in area where several schools were nearby, we maintained a heavy police presence all day and enlisted the help of animal control officers and park rangers to ensure the safety of the public and the animals. In the end, despite a lengthy search, the animals were never seen again," the agency said.

For more safety tips on mountain lions, see https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pol/as/wildlife/mlions.asp.

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