Why did the mountain lion cross Main Street in Oldtown Salinas?
Sara Rubin here to say, regrettably, that I don’t know. But this is not actually a joke—it’s the real deal. Early this morning, well before sunrise, a video camera captured a mountain lion trotting along Main Street, illuminated by a streetlight.
That prompted the Salinas Police Department to issue a shelter-in-place order to people in South Salinas at 2:35am, advising people to stay inside. At 5:40am, before people might be getting ready to start getting around to work and school, SPD lifted that order, instead advising people to simply be aware of their surroundings. The lion was last seen at about 5:45am near Woodside Drive and Iverson Street, a residential neighborhood just about a block from Blanco Road and about a mile-and-a-half south of where the video camera captured it.
By now, the animal has likely returned to a more suitable habitat, says Steve Gonzalez, a public information officer for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. If not, CDFW biologists believe it will be back on the move tonight after dark to find its way out of town.
It’s likely a young lion based on its size and markings, and it’s not uncommon at this time of year for young mountain lions to leave their mothers and go out searching for their own territory.
“Most mountain lions need around 200 miles of free range to roam, and within that 200 miles there are towns, people, houses. It’s part of the habitat,” Gonzalez notes.
Still, it’s a remarkable reminder to me that we live in their habitat—even our paved, urban neighborhoods are established in places that large, charismatic animals call home. (Once upon a time, grizzly bears called this territory their home, too.)
I recently wrote about the remarkable group of hundreds of sea lions that have settled in at San Carlos Beach in Monterey. These are predators of fish, not large mammals, but still humans are advised to exercise caution when wildlife-watching. “These are large animals, they can be unpredictable, and they can be territorial," Giancarlo Rulli of the Marine Mammal Center told me. "They are wild. Take that photo, but do so from a safe distance." (I strongly suggest a trip to the beach to see them while they are here.)
Mountain lion sightings come with additional precautions—keep dogs on a leash, and avoid jogging alone at dusk or dawn in their habitat—but given that the young lion seen this morning has likely made its way back to a more wild setting, it’s back to business as usual, Gonzalez says.
That we get to share our homes with these incredible animals is a gift, especially when it happens peacefully and injury-free. People have a role in helping to try to keep encounters with wildlife safe; to review the CDFW’s guidelines on mountain lion safety, click here.
What’s your most remarkable urban wildlife sighting?