Tranquilized mountain lion falls from Idaho tree, video shows. See what happens next
A young male mountain lion plunged from a tree after if it was tranquilized in southeastern Idaho, a video shows.
The animal had roamed into a neighborhood in Pocatello on April 18, the city police department said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
It was then spotted in someone’s tree and reported to authorities, police said
Police responded to the area until Idaho Fish and Game arrived. By then the animal had moved to a different tree on another street, the wildlife agency said in a news release.
Wildlife officers darted the 90-pound animal with a tranquilizer and waited below the tree with a tarp that’s custom-made for handling wildlife.
A video shows the animal nosedive from the tree, then land onto the tarp.
The healthy mountain lion was given a reversal drug to “help the lion recover,” wildlife officials said in a Facebook post.
It was removed from the area and released back into the mountains outside the city, another video shows.
There weren’t any reports of injured pets or people, “just some excitement seeing a mountain lion in town,” the agency’s spokesperson Zach Lockyer told McClatchy News.
Although mountain lion sightings are common in southeastern Idaho, Lockyer said officers rarely have to relocate the animals.
Pocatello is about a 235-mile drive southeast from Boise.
This story was originally published April 22, 2024 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Tranquilized mountain lion falls from Idaho tree, video shows. See what happens next."
