Mountain lions, perhaps California’s most efficient and stealthy four-legged predators, have long been rumored to move quietly through Sacramento’s open spaces. Sightings pop up regularly, particularly along the American River Parkway, but are often unreliable.

Now there can be no doubt.

On Saturday, a young male mountain lion was tranquilized and captured in a residential backyard in the capital city’s Oak Park neighborhood, one of the least likely places one would expect to encounter a cougar. Oak Park is busy, densely developed and gridded by major freeways and boulevards.

Yet there it was: a 70-pound superpredator resting in the landscaped backyard at 32nd and X streets. Walk two blocks east and stroll through the front door at Sacramento Charter High School. Or go two blocks south to the Bonfare Market on Broadway to fill up your gas tank and buy a frozen burrito.

“The urban blights of drug dealing and prostitution are kind of a daily thing around here. Or at least within a few blocks, you can see it all going on,” said David Sketchley, who lives next door to the home where the mountain lion was captured. “But this is a first.”

This cougar’s visit was a tale of remarkable sightings that occurred at various hours on Saturday. It began, so far as anyone knows, at 1:35 a.m. Saturday near 58th and M streets, when the first call came into the Sacramento Police Department: A mountain lion was roaming the streets of east Sacramento. That location is a full three miles from Sketchley’s neighborhood, but less than a half-mile from the American River and the Sacramento State campus. Police officers checked the area but were unable to locate anything.

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