OGDEN -- Ogden School District took precautions to get students home safely Thursday afternoon after officials received a report about a mountain lion sighting.
About 1 p.m., the district office received an e-mail from a resident that a mountain lion had been seen near 28th Street and Pierce Avenue, as well as Doxey Street. According to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, a resident said he spotted the lion late Wednesday night in that area.
After calling dispatchers and alerting the wildlife division, administrators got to work making sure children who were about to walk home to that neighborhood were safe. They pulled out a map and determined they should call Mount Ogden, Ogden High School, Polk Elementary School and Wasatch Elementary School about the sighting, said Donna Corby, district spokeswoman.
"We were most concerned about small students that would be dropped off in this neighborhood from these four schools," Corby said.
The elementary schools and junior high brought all of the students who walk home to that neighborhood into the office and made arrangements for them to get picked up from school, Corby said.
At the high school, the principal met with the bus driver for that neighborhood and told him to advise the students to be aware of their surroundings between the bus stop and home.
The district had not received any reports of children running into a mountain lion after school, Corby said.
Arlo Wing, a Division of Wildlife Resources specialist, responded to the area to investigate the sighting but did not find a mountain lion.
"There are mountain lions around. While most of the time they go unnoticed, (sometimes) someone does see them," said Phil Douglass, director of the DWR northern office. Many reports turn out to be unsubstantiated, but the division does investigate and take each one very seriously, Douglass said.
Corby said the school district might include a new page about mountain lions in a future edition of their emergency safety response guide.
"We do know that when there is construction or home building, there is a displacement of animals," she said.
DWR advises people not to run when they see a cougar, which would provoke its instinct to pursue prey. Instead, it advises that people should act intimidating by making eye contact and making themselves look as large as they can by opening a jacket, as well as raising and waving their arms. People should also speak loud and firm to the cougar, according to the division.
The division also advises that if an adult and child are near a mountain lion, the adult should pick up the child before he or she panics and runs.
More information about mountain lions is available at the division's website at wildlife.utah.gov/dwr.
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