The Spencer Canyon Campground near Mount Lemmon re-opened Friday morning after authorities found no trace of a mountain lion seen in the area earlier in the week.
In the early hours Tuesday morning, two campers heard an animal outside their tent. They shined their flashlight around the campground and saw a large animal with glinting eyes, said Mark Hart, spokesman for Arizona Game and Fish Department.
“It was obvious some kind of large animal outside their tent, we just couldn’t say conclusively it was a mountain lion,” Hart said.
However, a caller gave a detailed description of a mountain lion in the area Wednesday. Authorities searched for tracks, scat, or hair left on branches, but did not find anything conclusive, Hart said, although the search was hampered by rain.
U.S. Forest Service personnel also came up empty in their search for the mountain lion, said agency spokeswoman Heidi Schewel.
“We have had personnel in the area looking for signs of mountain lions for the last couple days without finding such,” she said.
The campground was re-opened at 11 a.m. Friday, she said, but she urged visitors to keep their campsites clean, not bring food or clothes they wore while cooking into the tent, and make sure food and trash is secured and out of sight.
“We would like to encourage visitors to be aware when they are recreating in the forest that they are in wildlife habitat,” she said, urging visitors to “keep their situational awareness up.”
A mountain lion passing near a campground is not necessarily cause for alarm, Hart said, but a mountain lion entering a campsite warrants attention, particularly after a woman was “terribly mauled” by a bear in 1996 as it tried to get food kept in their campsite.
The Mount Lemmon area attracts mountain lions due to the rebound of the white tail deer population, which serves as a food source for the lions, after wildfires a decade ago, Hart said.
Mountain lion populations are difficult to measure, he said, but Arizona Game and Fish estimates about 600 mountain lions live in southeast Arizona. He did not know how many live in the Santa Catalina Mountains.
