Rock Valley, IA (KICD) — A large male mountain lion was shot and killed late Friday afternoon in Sioux County.

The mountain lion was in a wooded area near the Rock River approximately four miles south of Rock Valley in Sioux County.

The mountain lion was first spotted by a hunter checking his trail camera Thursday evening. When the cat, sitting about 40 yards away did not move, the man slowly backed away and called a neighbor. Returning to the spot, the mountain lion was still in the same place, but walked away from a buck it had recently killed. The men then called Conservation Officer John Sells. He tells what happened next…

Within a minute of having shot the lion, Sells said a school bus come down the gravel road and dropped off kids at the nearby house. The children all began sledding in an open area right next to the kill site and would have been playing less than 200 yards from where lion had been.

Sell said this mountain lion was a larger animal than other cats that have been killed or spotted in Iowa…

The cat did not have any tattoos or any other signs of having been raised in captivity. Tissue samples were taken to have DNA analysis done to try and determine where the mountain lion originated.