Watch a mountain lion drag a deer carcass from a Bay Area front porch
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Even Peter Rauenbuehler’s big German shepherd-husky didn’t want to mess with this cat.
That’s because the early-morning visitor was no domestic feline munching on some unlucky rodent. Instead, it was a mountain lion gorging on the carcass of a freshly killed deer in the Lakeview neighborhood of Hillsborough in San Mateo County.
The cat had killed the deer in Rauenbuehler’s front yard, then dragged it over a 3-foot high fence and onto his darkened porch about 4 a.m. Wednesday.
“My wife went to the door and one of our dogs, the biggest of the three, he backed off and went back into the bedroom,” Rauenbuehler said. “He’s the toughest one.”
Deer sightings are frequent in the Bay Area suburb, and carcasses from a mountain lion are seen in the neighborhood about once or twice a year, Rauenbuehler said. But what was unusual this time is that the feasting puma and its kill were recorded on Rauenbuehler’s home security camera system and posted to YouTube.
“We’d heard a large cracking sound; we thought it was a tree limb. In retrospect, it was probably the deer’s neck,” Rauenbuehler said in an interview with The Times.
When Rauenbuehler’s wife looked through the front door peephole to investigate the sound, she thought it was a coyote and opened the door.
The big cat was only about six feet away from her, Rauenbuehler said. She immediately closed it and the family’s biggest, baddest dog, Jake, scampered away to hide.
“We were pretty surprised, but it wasn’t hugely scary. We were more interested than scared,” Rauenbuehler said, noting that he and his wife had recently returned from seeing exotic animals in Borneo. “It was pretty strong. He had big paws and big claws.”
After the door was closed, the couple turned on the porch light, which startled the predator, the video shows.
The mountain lion grabbed its kill by the neck and dragged it off into the night.
The next morning the hollowed-out deer carcass was found on the neighbor’s lawn, Rauenbuehler said. The family has since taken to warning their guests to park in the driveway if they’re arriving at night, he added.
For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.
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