Officers Kill Cougar That Roamed Into Orange County Neighborhood

A 120-pound mountain lion was shot to death Wednesday morning as it crouched by a hedge in a quiet Yorba Linda residential neighborhood.

The female cougar had been roaming the area as children left for school, authorities said. It was cornered by police and animal control officers, who fired four shotgun rounds, said Pat Moore, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game.

Police received the first reports of a cougar in the Orange County neighborhood at 6:30 a.m. They warned families to stay indoors as they searched; the fatal shots were fired shortly after 8 a.m., said Bob Ashabraner, who lives directly across from the house where the animal was killed.

Moore said the cougar was killed rather than tranquilized because tranquilizer darts take 15 to 20 minutes to take effect, and the warden at the scene was afraid the cat would injure someone before becoming unconscious.

The cougar’s body was taken to the Fish and Game Department’s Victorville facility for necropsy, Moore said.

Larry Sitton, a wildlife biologist with the Fish and Game Department, said it receives about a dozen reports annually of cougars in populated areas in Southern California. He said the last stray cougar shot in Orange County, about nine months ago, had attacked a poodle.