A disoriented cougar has been tranquilised and pictured unconscious in a kitchen sink after it wandered into a Washington town and clawed through a screen door to enter a man's home.
Local television news channel KREM 2 reported that someone first saw the cougar walking the streets of Ephrata and called the police at around 9:20am local time.
Soon after, while police were trying to find the animal, they received another call from a distressed resident.
“He said he was out having his morning cigarette when the cougar ran right past him, and then it turned and jumped through his front screen door,” said Ephrata Police Captain Erik Koch to the Columbia Basin Herald.
A Fish and Wildlife team responded and needed two darts to sedate the adult male animal, which tried to escape through the kitchen window after being hit the first time.
Becky Bennett, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Spokesman-Review: "Generally an animal gets disoriented and it’s a matter of them getting lost".
"This was probably a wrong time, wrong place, wrong house situation.”
Nearby Grant Elementary School was effectively locked down during the incident.
