At sunset on Christmas Eve, state fish-and-game officers set a wayward wildcat free somewhere in the mountains of northern Utah.
The 100-pound female created a stir Friday when it went on a mid-morning ramble around Riverton, drawing a crowd of curiosity seekers, police officers and television cameras."Lord, it was like a circus," said Riverton animal-control officer Bill Arnold, who plugged the animal with a tranquilizer dart to end a chase that began near Oquirrh Middle School, crossed busy highways and open farmland and ended in the Riverton Heights subdivision.
"I had a deputy standing there with his gun out just in case it decided to cut loose," said Arnold.
He said the animal, about 2 years old, was probably too young to know better than to venture out of its wild Oquirrh Mountains habitat into suburbia.
"It's sure the first time I've ever seen one in my yard," said Tom Tateoka, owner of the home where the cat was captured as it tried to hide in a basement window well. Tateoka said his barking dog gave away the location of the mountain lion.
Such sightings in the urban Salt Lake area are almost unheard of, according to Arnold.
The cat was placed in the custody of officers from the Division of Wildlife Resources. Arnold said they planned to give it an early Christmas present by releasing it shortly after dark at an undisclosed location.
The state's open season on mountain lions is in progress, he noted.
"It's not too street-smart yet, and if hunters knew where it was it'd be kind of vulnerable," he said.