A mountain lion statue on the lawn of a Welburn Avenue house
looked lifelike enough to fool neighbors and police officers
Thursday morning.
A mountain lion statue on the lawn of a Welburn Avenue house looked lifelike enough to fool neighbors and police officers Thursday morning.
Duane Anderson, 70, lives across the street from the plastic lion on the 1500 block of Welburn, where the avenue climbs the western foothills. He smiled Thursday afternoon as he recalled calling 9-1-1 at about 7:30 a.m.
The statue must have been placed there within the past couple of days while Anderson and his wife were out of town, he said. They didn’t see it when they returned home Wednesday night after dark.
That morning, however, looking out the window, it looked like a real cougar. They had received a flyer from the city instructing them to call 9-1-1 if they saw a lion, so that’s what they did.
“Then after we had called them, we looked at it again and said, ‘Hmm, it’s not moving,'” he said.
Two police cars soon arrived and parked, but the lion didn’t flinch. By then, Anderson said, he and his family figured it was not real.
Officer Ray Hernandez, parked closer to the statue, observed the same, but the two officers in the other car were still fooled. Hernandez, deciding a joke was in order, crept up to the cougar and – to the other officers’ amazement – ran at it and gave it a hug.
Back at the police station, officers in their shift change meeting, broke into laughter as they listened in by radio, a police source said.
The statue’s owner could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Anderson said he has seen deer, wild turkeys and quail walk by his house, but never a mountain lion.
