BOTHELL — A possible cougar sighting in a Bothell neighborhood on Tuesday put Skyview Junior High and Canyon Creek Elementary schools in lockdown mode for the day.
About 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, two junior high school students who were on the school field with their physical education class said they saw an animal that looked like a cougar just east of the tennis courts, said Pamela Steele, Northshore School District spokeswoman.
The two schools are side-by-side in the 21400 block of 35th Avenue SE, and the area around the schools is a quiet, wooded, residential neighborhood.
"They saw a long, sleek, catlike figure, most likely a cougar, so they immediately told the adults on the field, who immediately brought everyone inside," Steele said.
The schools went into lockdown, in which no one is allowed to leave or enter the schools.
Police and animal control officials were called, she said.
Officials with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife investigated but were unable to confirm the sighting.
The students were released at the normal time, and Skyview principal Mike Anderson sent letters home with students letting parents know about the possible cougar sighting.
"Both district security and the police patrolled the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. No evidence of a cougar was found," he said in the letter.
Parents of children in the neighborhood were asked to use their own judgment regarding students walking to and from school. The schools were on regular schedules today.
Three cougar sightings near Quil Ceda Elementary School on the Tulalip Reservation in February led Tulalip police to put out cougar traps borrowed from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife that were meant to catch the cougar alive.
"We never did catch a cougar; it wasn’t successful," said Tulalip Police Chief Jay Goss.
"It’s really difficult to trap a cougar. In order to catch one, you have to use really fresh kill, so it’s difficult to bait them, and if you get a lot of people around there, they tend to stay away."
A couple of more sightings have occurred in that area since then, but not near the school, he said.
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