The Riverton Police Department is warning people to be on the lookout for a mountain lion spotted along a walking path south of town.
A local resident spotted the mountain lion on the River Walk, a walking path following the river south of town, Wednesday morning and reported it to the local Wyoming Game and Fish Department office, RPD Capt. Wes Romero told Cowboy State Daily.
Game and Fish in turn reported it to RPD, which dispatched a warning via its Facebook page.
The river walk courses along just past the local fairgrounds and toward an elementary school.
Mountain lion sightings in Riverton are not very common, said Romero. Sometimes they’re founded, sometimes they’re unfounded.
A mountain lion visited the town and sparked multiple sightings in 2017 before hunkering under a resident’s porch for several hours and prompting RPD animal control to shoot it.
Authorities at the time said the cat must have been famished to visit town with such confidence.
And in early January 2022, a mountain lion killed a deer in the nearby town of Lander and Wyoming Game and Fish agents had to put it down. It was a “massive safety issue,” said Lander Police Department Chief Scott Peters at the time.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
