Cougar shows up on doorbell camera at Utah home

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!”

“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.

This story was first published by fellow CNN affiliate KSL. It is used here with permission.