In Hesperia, California, a mountain lion crashed for a night in a backyard shed after eating at least one of the family’s pet turkeys. A woman heard some rustling in her mom’s shed, when she opened the door to find a mountain lion sitting there staring at her, suspiciously surrounded by turkey feathers.
She called the authorities, but no one could get the cougar to leave. In fact, the mountain lion seemed content to stay the night after its big meal.
“You know how you feel [on] Thanksgiving after eating a turkey? That’s how he was,” the woman said in an interview with KCAL News.
When wildlife officials couldn’t get the mountain lion to leave the shed on its own, they decided to call it a night and let it stay (with a guard keeping watch overnight). In the morning, authorities sedated the cougar, lifted it into the back of a truck, and transported it to a safe place. Hesperia borders the San Bernardino Mountains, where mountains lions reign supreme as apex predators.
The family says one turkey is still missing, so it’s possible the cougar feasted on not one but two of their birds.
Watch the news report here: