Mountain lion cub gets detention
A young mountain lion entered a high school in San Mateo County on Wednesday morning and was being held inside a classroom for removal by wildlife authorities, officials said.
All students and staff at Pescadero High School were safe, the San Mateo County Sheriff ’s Office said on Twitter.
Around 8:23 a.m., the Sheriff ’s Office was notified that a mountain lion, which officials described as an emaciated young cub, had entered the school and was being contained in a classroom.
Wildlife officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were at the school Wednesday afternoon, working to remove the animal from the classroom in order to take it to the Oakland Zoo for a health assessment, said Ken Paglia, a spokesperson for CDFW.
Pescadero High School English teacher Randy Vail told the Half Moon Bay Review that another teacher and a student first noticed the animal in front of the school Wednesday morning. It tried to run inside, he said, but first ran into a glass door. Once it got inside, the mountain lion ran into the glass door again and couldn’t get out.
After that, a “swiftacting custodian took the opportunity to shut the door on the lion, keeping it contained to the English classroom,” the Sheriff ’s Office said.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether any students or school staff were ever in the classroom with the mountain lion. A photo on Twitter that appears to have been taken through a window shows the mountain lion sitting on the floor of the classroom, behind a desk.
Wildlife officials believe the mountain lion is roughly 6 to 12 months old, and it appeared to be underweight and possibly in poor health. It “definitely didn’t act aggressively,” Paglia said.
“We’re talking about a mountain lion, so we all inherently have the sense that it could be dangerous, but we also have to take a look at what’s actually happening,” Paglia said. “In this case, it’s probably just a young animal looking for its territory, and it probably got stuck or couldn’t find its way out.”