A mountain lion was spotted early Friday morning on Highfield Road in the Silver Creek area, according to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
Friday at 12:27 a.m., dispatch received a call about a mountain lion in the residential area north of Interstate 80 in the Snyderville Basin.
Deputy Ashley Fugal said few details were available about the sighting, including a description of its size and what it was doing when it was seen. Fugal said the Division of Wildlife Resources was notified of the animal’s presence in the area, the only report she is aware of.
Colvy Jones, DWR’s wildlife program manager for the central region, said he has not heard of the report, but is not surprised.
“Wherever you have deer, you have mountain lions,” Jones said. “Mountain lions are one of those animals that are just everywhere. People call and say, ‘I saw a mountain lion’ and I’m like, ‘I’m sure you did.'”
Jones said mountain lion sightings are common in Summit County because of its proximity to wildlife habitats. As previously reported in The Park Record, a driver hit a mountain lion in Wasatch County in May. It had to be put down.
Jones said DWR receives a “fair number” of reports of mountain lion sightings.
“It doesn’t surprise or concern me,” Jones said. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t look into it to see what it was doing.”
When Mountain lions are hunting and make a kill, they may spend more than a week in an area, Jones said, and then cycle back through again several months later. The animals are typically shy and avoid contact with humans.
“Large cats can be intimidating, but they are really super shy,” Jones said. “They don’t like people and are afraid of anything on two legs.”
In the event of an encounter, Jones advised making loud noises and being aggressive to scare the mountain lion off.
‘Be big, be loud and they will run away,” Jones said. “Dealing with a cougar is not the same as dealing with a bear. You make yourself look big and mean you yell and they will run away.”