Mountain Lion Smashes Through Window of Home

LAKE TAHOE —  Kay Packard thought an earthquake had struck when the bedroom window shattered.

Packard, who is from Los Angeles and was visiting friends in Lake Tahoe, was terrified. She pulled the covers over her head and never saw the 120-pound mountain lion that invaded the room, leaving it a shambles.

The mountain lion made its exit about 10 seconds later out the same guest bedroom window it had entered.

Packard was visiting Andy and Tracy Chapman in Zephyr Cover when the incident occurred around 2 a.m. Sunday.

Officials believe the big cat may have attacked its own reflection in the window.

“The explosion we heard was like a tree coming through the window,” Tracy Chapman said. “The room was just turned upside down.”

Andy Chapman said he hurried to the bedroom, but never saw the feline intruder.

“I had no idea there was an animal in the room,” he said.

Chapman was boarding up the window later that morning when he noticed his dog looking up a tree. The 4-year-old cougar was perched on a branch.

Wildlife experts tranquilized the mountain lion and released it Monday in the Pine Nut Mountains east of Gardnerville.

The cat was tagged with a radio collar and will be monitored by researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, said Chris Healy, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Wildlife.

Interaction between humans and large animals such as bears and mountain lions is becoming increasingly frequent as housing developments encroach on wildlife habitat throughout the Sierra, wildlife officials said.

“A mountain lion in there is not common but it is not rare either,” Healy said Tuesday.

The mountain lion probably was feeding on coyotes and other small mammals in the area, Healy said. He said the reflection in a window likely prompted the attack.

“They are very defensive of their own territory,” he said.

“Suddenly this lion is confronted by this other lion. It jumps from a boulder through the window and when it lands through the window, it was confronted again with its own image in a mirror, it tore after the mirror and some of the room.”

Healy said everyone has the same question: Is the mountain lion still a danger to people?

“If it is jumping through windows, it is dangerous to people. But is it going to come back and jump through another window? We don’t think so.”