So a mountain lion walks into a casino...

[MadImmortalMan]

...he says, "I heard this was a good place to pick up cougars".

Mountain lion visits downtown Reno


Early Friday morning was not the best time to finish a night of drinking and exit Harrah's Reno.

Enter scene from the movie "The Hangover" here.

At about that time and place, a 2-year-old male mountain lion wandered north on Virginia Street, presumably from the Truckee River.

"Why it was walking up the street, we don't know," Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Chris Healy said.

Reno Police found the 98-pound cat at about 5:15 a.m. Nevada Department of Wildlife officials arrived at about 6 a.m.

The mountain lion was hiding behind garbage cans in the Harrah's plaza, Healy said. One of the wardens climbed a ladder to reach a high position and fired three tranquilizer shots, he said.

"Because it was an urban interface public safety situation, you wanted it to go down and go down quickly," Healy said. "That's why three tranquilizers were fired."

Guests at Harrah's reported seeing the cat trying to walk into the casino around dawn Friday morning. When the animal couldn't negotiate the revolving door, it hid under an outdoor stage in a nearby plaza.

No injuries were reported.

"We're lucky this turned out as positive for the mountain lion and people at the scene," Healy said. "It would have been a different story for the cat had it succeeded in getting inside Harrah's."

The mountain lion was transported to the Nevada Department of Wildlife field office in Reno and then to the department's office in Carson City. The cat will be released by Saturday morning or earlier, depending on how it recovers from the tranquilizer shots, Healy said, and it will be studied by the University of Nevada, Reno through a tag.

"It depends on how fast it comes out of its drug-induced haze," he said

But why did a mountain lion wander alone to the most urban spot in Northern Nevada?

More than 3,000 adult mountain lions live in Nevada, Healy said. The outlying foothills surrounding the western portions of the Truckee Meadows include mountain lion habitats.

Friday was not the only time urban Reno has been visited by a mountain lion. A large cat visited Hacienda Del Sol in 1989 near where the Peppermill Resort Casino Spa stands today.

Its age is a key factor, NDOW conservation education chief Teresa Moiola said.

"It is at a normal dispersal age," Moiola said. "It is normal for them at (2 years old) to be striking out alone."

Healy called the cat's behavior "almost the equivalent of being a stupid teenager."

He said coming-of-age cougars often end up where they shouldn't after being chased out of a territory by adults.

NDOW received two reports earlier in the week of a mountain lion near the Truckee River.

"If we are going to speculate, it more likely came off the foothills of Mt. Rose, because that is where the better habitat is," Healy said. "In the past when we have bears coming from the river corridor, they usually come from up there because it is better habitat. That is our best educated guess."

NDOW did not consider euthanizing the mountain lion because it never displayed a threat to humans, Healy said.

"Had it been displaying aggressive tendencies to humans there would have been a good chance we would have euthanized it," he said.

Healy did not rule out the Northern Nevada summer drought as a factor in the mountain lions journey to Reno.

"That could have played a factor," he said. "But it is more likely the behavior of a 2-year-old dispersal of a lion looking for a place to be."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.