TEMECULA (AP) — A mountain lion that was tranquilized after it wandered into the parking lot of a Southern California mall has died.
The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports that authorities were called after people saw the animal Friday morning outside a Macy’s department store in Temecula.
State Fish and Wildlife spokesman Kyle Orr says a warden shot the animal with a tranquilizer dart. He says authorities were preparing to move it when it died.
Officials plan to conduct a necropsy to determine the cause of death.
Orr says the animal wasn’t aggressive but had to be removed because of the number of people at Temecula’s Promenade Mall.
Temecula, with a population of 106,000, is about 85 miles southeast of Los Angeles.