A Utah neighborhood got a serious fright last Thursday evening when a 75-pound killer mountain lion was found on a porch sleeping.
A Utah neighborhood got a serious fright last week when a mountain lion appeared right at one suburban family's doorstep.
Area resident Rhett Riding told InsideEdition.com that the hubbub began Thursday when someone spotted a big cat in their Heber City neighborhood.
"In my neighborhood there are a lot of kids and dogs and cats and I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt," so Riding and a neighbor joined a few other residents to track down the mountain lion.
At one point, the cat was spotted digging through garbage at one of the neighborhood homes.
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However, after calling the cops, Riding said the mountain lion vanished once again.
That was, until someone spotted it where no one had thought to look.
"A neighbor looks out window and sees cat across street – just sleeping on the porch," Riding said.
Riding said the cat didn't move from where it sat on the porch for about two hours as residents nervously awaited the arrival of the closest tranquilizer expert from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Once the animal was tranquilized, it ran off only to be found about a quarter mile away, Riding told InsideEdition.com.
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The mountain lion, estimated to be about 2 years old and 75 pounds, was kept overnight for observation, then released the next day.
"We haven’t had a mountain lion in the neighborhood for as long as people can remember," Riding marveled.
While the mere presence of such an animal doesn't surprise state experts, its chosen bed came as a surprise.
"It's not unusual to have mountain lions wander through some of our communities," Amy Canning with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources told InsideEdition.com. "But I've worked here for almost nine years, and this is the first time I've heard of one lounging on someone's porch."
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