Mountain lion that ran into Irvine business Tuesday released

A mountain lion captured yesterday after running through an Irvine shopping center and into a business has been released back into the wild. 

The Irvine cougar, known as M317, now has a GPS collar after Tuesday's wild adventure where dozens of people saw the mountain lion running through a shopping center, pawing at the window of a brewery and darting past a hair salon

The big cat, weighing in at 114 pounds, was finally cornered inside of a lab at Morse Mircro, where employee Mark Waterhouse, visiting from the UK, got quite a shock as the cougar sauntered through an open door. 

Big cat expert and veterinarian Scott Weldy was the person who eventually shot anesthesia into the cougar's left shoulder. Within 20 minutes, the 2-year-old cat was knocked out. 

"I've been doing it since 1985 and I've never shot a mountain lion in a building ever, other than a zoo building, and I've never had a mountain lion running down the street and, you know, there was a fair amount of chaos. But you know, Irvine PD controlled everything so well," Dr. Weldy said. 

After an exam, the tracking necklace was put on the mountain lion and he was sent on his way in an undisclosed Orange County canyon. 

A University of California, Davis vet, Dr. Winston Vickers, director of the California Mountain Lion Project will be monitoring M317. Cougar sightings occur, he said, as development continues to encroach into the animal's habitat. 

"We've basically stuck houses out into the areas where the mountain lions used to roam or they still roam, but they have to kind of move around the edges," Dr. Vickers said. 

So far, Vickers said he hasn't yet received any satellite data from M317. It's also one of five mountain lions tagged in the Santa Ana Mountain range.