A decision to shoot a mountain lion in Hollister has sparked an online war of words between the city's police department and the Oakland Zoo.
The incident started early Friday morning when Hollister police evacuated homes when a mountain lion was spotted on a porch in a populated neighborhood.
Fish and wildlife officers say they tried multiple times to tranquilize the animal but couldn't.
Four hours into the standoff, the mountain lion charged directly at a police officer, police said. That's when two officers opened fire.
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The big cat was hit once, then sedated and taken to the Oakland Zoo for treatment. It died during surgery.
Police have since taken issue with how the zoo described the incident on social media.
The zoo posted "while trying to safely capture him, he was shot by local PD while CDFW was attempting to dart him with a tranquilizer."
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Hollister police responded, saying the zoo's "choice of words is careless at best, and misleading at worst. It characterizes our actions as having been reckless and impatient and none of that is true. We regret that they have yet to retract, correct, and amend their statement. Words matter."
Neither side agreed to NBC Bay Area's request for an on-camera interview on Monday. NBC Bay Area was able to speak with the Bay Area Puma Project.
"My initial reaction was dismay," Bay Area Puma Project President Zara McDonald said.
McDonald said there is a need for more resources and instruction on how to handle situations such as this one.
"I won't fault the law enforcement for what happened," McDonald said. "I think that what it comes down to is we need more training for everybody because these incidents didn't happen so much in the past. They’re happening more."
The zoo issued a follow-up statement, saying, "Our posting stated the facts as reported to us by our partners at CDFW, Hollister PD was not named by us, nor judged by us, and we understand HPD has since issued multiple statements around why shots were fired by their officers based on their account — and we respect that."
