Hairstylists Emily Taylor and Rukkus did a double-take Tuesday at the strange thing that happened while they went about their workday at a hair salon in Irvine.
They saw people outside their building, chasing some kind of animal coming their way. They ran to make sure the door of Bishops Salon was closed tight.
“Me and Rukkus held the door shut and we were like, ‘Oh, my God … no, no, no, no,'” Taylor said.
Rukkus couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I opened my eyes like, ‘What was that?'” he said.
It was a 2-year-old male mountain lion. Dazed and confused, and being pursued by members of animal control, it kept running toward an office complex behind a shopping center.
Along the way, the big cat left scratch marks on a concrete sidewalk and froze onlookers who saw it in their place.
When it finally came into the offices of the company Morse Micro, employees didn’t even realize at first what the creature could be.
“I thought I’d put a saddle on and ride it out, it was a big old thing,” said witness Mark Waterhouse.
Police say the cat did not attack or bite anyone — but it did leave a trail of “what-ifs.”
Given the size and health of the animal, officials said that will be a candidate for release back into the wild.