Imagine being sound asleep in your comfy bed and a mountain lion jumps right on top of you. That is exactly what happened to a woman in north-central California.
A lion crashed into the door of a bowling alley before sprinting and leaping through the window. The woman stayed calm enough to open the back door to let it out.
“People can be in danger when they come face to face with one of these lions. The reality is that mountains are in this area. One of them’s been in town—probably more than once,” John Troughton, Colusa County Fish and wildlife commissioner, told KTXL-TV. “They’re protected and I understand that and I think they’re very pretty but there’s a place for them and there’s a place that isn’t for them.”
Colusa plans to hold a community meeting to address the issue.
The state of California does not allow the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to apply management strategies, like hunting, to mountain lions. Despite being listed as a “specially protected species,” the estimated population in California numbers between 4,000 and 6,000 animals.