This is absolutely nuts.
A community in Santa Rosa, California is a bit on edge, after video footage has surfaced of a mountain lion walking into a house, attacking the dog inside, and dragging it out by its neck into the backyard.
According to KRON4, it all went down last week when a resident left her sliding door open, making it easy access for outside creatures.
The mountain lion walked in and targeted the homeowner’s border collie, and the homeowners heard the commotion.
You can see in the footage the mountain lion standing over the dog as it lies motionless.
Neighbor Ron Crane said:
“A neighbor came over and fired a shot in the air.”
Luckily enough, the dog was still alive and was rescued and treated for its wounds.
Crane said the homeowner thought the dog was “gone for sure.”
However, the mountain lion remained outside, and stared through the glass door for several hours.
The mountain lion then proceeded to kill two goats before it was eventually euthanized by state wildlife biologists this past weekend.
Crane added that the community is lucky the mountain lion didn’t target a small child:
“That could have easily been a kid. The local activist organization knew this cat had erratic behavior problems for a while. I’m a local rancher. The public needs the whole story.”
Although mountain lions’ primary food are deer, Crane said a dwindling deer population may be the reason for the creature’s targeted attacks in the community:
“The deer are dwindling, and these kinds of things are going to happen more often. I’m 49, and when I was in high school, there were no sightings. The (cougar) population was not as big as it is now.”
In addition to deer, mountain lions in California will also eat rabbits, raccoons, beavers, rodents, coyotes, and many other wildlife species.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife say that mountain lions are typically afraid of humans, but the Audubon Canyon Ranch, an environmental conservation group, said this one was “unusually old,” and displayed unusual behavior.
They identified the mountain lion as P1, a female cougar who was around 16 years old.
ACR researchers said that although they were “saddened” by the death, they believe the correct measure was taken.
Needless to say, this situation could have been much worse… thank God the dog was ok.
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