JUST LION AROUND

Published in the July 11, 2026 edition.

The experts told her it was unprecedented. 

But it’s been that kind of crazy year for Aspen Springs resident Penny Melin. 

On Friday morning, June 26, Penny returned home with her two dogs like any other day and her 11.5-year old dachshund named Zelda started having a barking fit outside her office down the hall from the kitchen. 

Now 27-pound Zelda’s a little crazy. She could have been barking at her own shadow. But Penny went to investigate. 

Took three steps inside the room and stopped dead in her tracks. 

Fourteen feet away (she measured it later) there was a 2-year old, 88-pound mountain lion peeking out from around her desk. The lion was hissing and unhappy.

She quickly closed the door. 

“There’s a mountain lion in my house.”

She called Fish and Game. 

Penny lives at a property which overlooks a valley where sheep graze in the summer. There are three different sheep pens located in a triangle. Highway 395 is visible in the distance, as well as a slice of Crowley Lake if you squint. 

One of the sheep pens is below her home. 

Five days previously, eleven sheep had been slaughtered by the lion (strike one). 

A few days after that, another sheep was slaughtered (strike two). 

In response, a variety of trackers and dogs went searching for the perp. 

Just the day before, Penny said the cat had been chased under her house. 

“It’s as if Mike [her late husband who died in January] was whispering in his ear saying, ‘Hey, hide in here!’ Penny will take care of you.” 

Penny later discovered that the lion had pushed in a locked window frame next to the front door. That’s how he had gained entry.

Fish and Game arrived an hour later. The two employees hemmed and hawed. They suggested that perhaps Penny should just leave the doors open and disappear for a few hours. Maybe the lion would exit of his own volition. 

Penny wasn’t having it. How would she really know where it was or if it had left? 

More hemming and hawing. 

Finally, they decided to tranquilize the animal and relocate it to the Glass Mountains. 

The lion had been previously collared. 

On Tuesday, June 30, Penny learned that the animal had been spotted in Hammil Valley lounging underneath a fire truck. 

It had slaughtered two chickens (strike three). 

The lion has not been heard from since. 

Clockwise from right: Penny pointing to the window the lion dislodged to gain entry; Zelda the mighty dachsund; Big Teeth, Lion snacks as far as the eye can see; Tranq’d and blindfolded