A mountain lion raised a ruckus in Gillette for nearly two days this week before some residents reported it hiding in a neighbor’s back yard late Wednesday.
Wyoming Game and Fish Department wardens responded quickly to the site and shot the big male cat with a tranquilizer dart before taking it away to be released back into the wild, Teri Anderson told Cowboy State Daily.
She said her husband Charlie had gone out to fill their backyard bird feeder at about 6:30 p.m. when he found an impressively large mountain lion track in the snow.
The Andersons, who live close to downtown Gillette near the intersection of Sixth Street and Kendrick Avenue, knew there was a mountain lion loose in the city. The roving big cat was first spotted in the city early Tuesday.
‘Oooohhh Shoot’
“So we thought, ‘Oh, that mountain lion walked across our yard,’” Teri said. “I went to take some pictures of the track so we could show it to our kids.”
Then they got a real surprise.
“We were busy checking that (track) out when I happened to look over and thought, ‘Oooohhh, shoot, there’s that mountain lion right there,” she said.
The mountain lion was hiding under some construction material in their neighbor’s yard just a few yards away.
“He was just curled up and not making any noise,” Teri said.
Despite the mountain lion not appearing to be agitated or aggressive, the Andersons didn’t taking any changes. The went back inside and called for help.
Ended Well
The dart was effective and wardens quickly had the lion on his way back into wild country, Teri said.
“It went well,” she said, adding the predator “never made much noise.”
She recalls at least one other time a mountain lion came into Gillette. That was “several years ago,” and it was similarly captured and released.
“With the winter being as bad as it is, there has been more wildlife coming into town this year,” she said.
