Wandering mountain lion captured in California neighborhood

March 27 (UPI) -- A mountain lion was captured after wandering through a residential California neighborhood and having a "staring contest" with a pedestrian.

Azusa police said officers responded to the Virginia Ann Drive neighborhood just before 7 a.m. Monday, when the mountain lion was seen jumping a wall into a resident's back yard.

Local woman Deborah Moore, 65, said she spotted the mountain lion watching her from across the street while walking home from a neighbor's house.

"I was stunned and amazed at the beauty. I didn't feel scared, it didn't seem like it was aggressive," Moore told the Los Angeles Times. "We just had a kind of staring contest and I didn't want to take off and have it chase me or something."

Moore said an Azusa police officer arrived on the scene and told her to go inside, and the cougar fled from the officer and ended up in her back yard.

The animal hopped a fence into a neighbor's yard, where police used a drone camera to watch as it climbed a shed and jumped behind another house.

The puma was successfully shot with a tranquilizer dart by a California Department of Fish and Wildlife game warden by 9:30 a.m.

"It's blind in one eye, one eye is totally white," Fish and Wildlife spokesman Adam Smith told CBS Los Angeles. "So, we're not really sure how healthy it is, it hasn't been able to get out of here. So because of that, we went ahead and tranquilized it."

Authorities said the female cougar will be examined by a veterinarian before being released back into the wild.