Cougar Shows Up On Doorbell Camera At Utah Home
Sep 10, 2019, 8:07 PM | Updated: Jul 16, 2023, 4:10 pm
TREMONTON, Utah – Biologists were able to relocate a mountain lion after the animal ended up on the porch of a Utah home.
Jeff Bonham was at home when he pulled out his phone to look at his doorbell camera on the Ring app last Thursday.
“I was the only one home and the Ring bell went off at the front porch,” Bonham said. “But being where I was at, nobody could come up and down the driveway without me knowing it.”
Having lived in the Radio Hill neighborhood for 15 years, Bonham has learned that many of his neighbors have four legs and don’t live in homes. Still, the visitor that showed up on his front porch was a big surprise.
“When I first looked at it, I thought it was a dog on my front porch that had set it off,” Bonham said. “But when I’d seen the tail, I realized it was a mountain cat!”
Bonham said he immediately ran inside his house, but only to grab his camera. After looking around for a few moments, he found it.
“(I) just got down on all fours, and looked underneath our dump trailer, and you could see him,” Bonham said. “He was underneath the dump trailer. He didn’t growl, he just looked. I didn’t feel threatened in the least.”
Looking back, however, Bonham admitted that may not have been the best course of action.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say how foolish I was,” Bonham said. “I was about 35-to-40 feet away from him, but I had a telephoto lens on my camera and I got a really good picture of him.”
Bonham then called Tremonton Police, who he said called the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Biologists came and eventually tranquilized the mountain lion.
Bonham helped carry it back to a kennel in the back of a DWR truck.
“This is a once in a lifetime deal,” Bonham said. However, he admitted his wife and children weren’t too happy with how close he got to the wild feline.
“My kids called me and told me what a fool I was,” Bonham said, laughing. “He asked me, he says, ‘well, did you have your gun?’ I said, ‘no, I had my camera!'”
According to a DWR spokeswoman, biologists were able to safely relocate the mountain lion to the Monte Cristo area.
