'Huge' Mountain Lion Seen Prowling in Norumbega Neighborhood

A "huge" mountain lion that has been spotted several different times in a Norumbega neighborhood had to be chased away by police officers Wednesday night.

The cat has made several forays into the hillside neighborhood on the 1100 block of Norumbega Drive, according to neighbors. A local resident reported another sighting just after 9 p.m. Wednesday night.

"Our officers saw the mountain lion and kind of like scared it away and it fled back into the mountains," said Monrovia Police Capt. Alan Sanvictores.

Police sent out robocalls about the incident to nearby residents and a warning about the mountain lion was posted Thursday on the city's website. The state Department of Fish and Game was notified as well, he said.

Aida Schwartz, who lives in the Norumbega neighborhood, said her son saw the mountain lion while smoking a cigarette in the early morning a few weeks ago.

"My son saw it also 2 1/2 weeks ago. He said it was a big one," Schwartz said. "He said it looked like it was stalking something."

Neighbors have speculated that the cat may be after raccoons that have been hanging around a home across from Schwartz's. She said the repeated sightings have become alarming.

"The sightings are getting more and more (frequent) and it's a huge one," she said. "It's getting scary."

Schwartz said she planned on stopping by the police station Thursday to find out more about the cat and what neighbors could do about it.

Mark Still, the curator of the Monrovia Historical Museum who lives next door to Schwartz, said his wife saw the cat about six months ago.

"It walked up the driveway to this house," he said, pointing to the same home Schwartz mentioned.

Wildlife sightings are so common in the neighborhood that Still has installed a "game camera" on a nearby tree that takes photographs whenever it detects movement.

"We're being photographed right now," he said.

Sanvictores said residents should take extreme caution whenever they encounter a mountain lion.

"The safest thing, obviously, is don’t make any contact with a mountain lion and if (residents are) in their homes, stay in their homes and call us immediately," Sanvictores said.