We all knew that Silicon Valley is adjacent to mountain lion territory, but I think a lot of residents were astonished by the recent appearance of a young male puma in a very densely populated part of Mountain View. Data from the tracking collar makes the story even more incredible! Check out the tiny shrubbery fronting a busy street (Rengstorff) where the big cat hid out for most of a day!!!

I'm glad they tagged him so we could see his journey:

If we zoom in on the northern part of his track, we can see where he left the wild and entered a sea of urban development below. He crossed highway 280 and enterd the Los Altos hills, where he wanderd around and then hunkered down for the day. The next night he started moving around again and found his way into downtown Mountain View nearly 4 miles from the wildlands he came from. That’s two nights and parts of three days so far that he was wandering around this highly developed area, and no one had seen him yet. He’s looking for a territory with potential mates, but clearly this was not it. My best guess at this point, is that he was looking for a way out, but he was so deep into the urban area, that he was not sure where to go to get back to open space. In the meantime he evaded detection by moving at night, and hiding in whatever places he can find — in a bush, under a parked car, up in a tree etc.

What a determined fellow!