Home surveillance video: Mountain lion pays visit to Oakland hills home

OAKLAND, Calif. - Surveillance video shows a mountain lion walking up Sandra Lee's driveway in Oakland.

"I normally only get little cats, and this thing was bigger than a little cat," Lee said.

It was indeed no tabby. 

The mountain lion paid a visit to Lee's home on Rosecrest Drive in the Oakmore neighborhood - just below Highway 13 - at about 1 a.m. Thursday.

SEE ALSO: San Bruno couple says mountain lion broke into home - a cat burglar

"I think he was just roaming around, looking for, you know a new spot. I don't know. I don't know really what mountain lions do," she said with a laugh. 

What it did do was traipse past Lee's succulents in her yard, after it had jumped onto her grass.

Lee had set up the cameras to check out wild animals.

"I see lots of deer. I see turkeys, lots of raccoons. Possums. Skunks, tons of birds," she said.

But she never imagined this. 

Lee says she feel both enthralled and a little concerned but the close encounter at her home. 

"My first reaction is it was beautiful," she said. "It was very beautiful. But I also know the danger of the beauty of it."

Her neighbor Carmen Bogan agreed. 

"That's my concern, that we know that this is there, that we are aware and that we are more vigilant," Bogan said.

Bogan said she wants residents, especially those with kids and pets, to be on the lookout. 

"We do have children. We have elderly, people are out. We have small animals, everyone has pets," Bogan said.

Shown Lee's video of the animal, Colleen Kinzley, the Oakland Zoo's vice president of animal care, conservation and research said it appeared to be an adult mountain lion, weighing anywhere from 100 to 150 pounds.

Kinzley said technology is capturing normal nocturnal mountain lion behavior in its usual habitat.

"It doesn't increase the risk. They're still very very shy animals that really want absolutely nothing to do with people," Kinzley said. 

The sighting in Oakland comes just days after a mountain lion broke through a glass window of a home in San Bruno, apparently lured by taxidermy trophy heads of a bison and elk hanging on the wall. 

And not too long before that, another mountain lion was caught in San Francisco and cared for by the Oakland Zoo, which dubbed the animal "Mr. Handsome." The beast was later relocated.