In mid-July, a young mountain lion was captured by a surveilliance camera at Stater Bros. in Tustin.

Alisen Dupre and her son Chase, 6, lounge recently with cat Shadow, who the family believes was killed by a mountain lion outside their Tustin home on Monday, July 17. (Photo courtesy of Alisen Dupre)

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Chase Dupre, 6, holds the collar worn by his cat Shadow, who died July 17 in an animal attack. His parents say the cat was killed by the same mountain lion seen nearby at Stater Bros. in Tustin. (Photo courtesy of Alisen Dupre)

Chase Dupre, 6, plays with his cat Shadow, killed in an animal attack in a Tustin neigborhood. (Photo courtesy of Alisen Dupre)

A Tustin family believes their 10-year-old cat Shadow was killed by mountain lion. (Photo courtesy of Alisen Dupre)



At dawn two weeks back, Adam Dupre walked outside his Tustin home to find a devastating sight.

Family cat Shadow lay mortally injured, the victim of an animal attack.

“My husband was crying when he told me, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him cry,” said Alisen Dupre.

At first, the couple, who live in a town home complex off Red Hill Avenue, assumed a coyote was to blame — even though coyotes have become a rarity in the area, she said. Still, the deep puncture wounds on Shadow’s body seemed odd.

Later that same day, July 16, Dupre came across alarming chatter on the Facebook page, Tustin Buzz. Captured by a surveillance camera at the nearby Stater Bros., also on Red Hill, the blurry picture showed a mountain lion skulking by the grocer’s entrance.

Dupre started to suspect that the timing of her 10-year-old cat’s death squarely placed the mountain lion at the scene of the crime.

As word got out about the cougar in Tustin, the photo of the big cat made the rounds on television news.

“It looks to be a juvenile mountain lion with a weight of about 50 pounds,” Andrew Hughan, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said of the image.

Mountain lions typically grow to about 75 pounds, he said. Male and female cougars cannot be differentiated by appearance, so he could not identify the visitor’s sex.

The story of what happened to the smaller, domesticated cat received scant attention except in back-and-forth on social media.

“Shadow was mostly an outdoor cat because my husband is highly allergic,” Dupre said. “We adopted her as a stray, and my son grew up with her.”

Some Facebook commentators scolded the Dupres for allowing their cat to roam. Alisen Dupre retorted that Shadow was cared for and loved — especially by 6-year-old son Chase.

“My husband even built Shadow a heated cat condo in our back yard,” she said.

A cougar’s visit to an urban area is “unusual but not all that surprising,” said Hughan, who wouldn’t speculate whether the cougar killed the cat.

“The mountain lion could have come from Whiting Ranch (Wilderness Park) along the 241 corridor and to the (Tustin Ranch) golf club and end up in somebody’s yard,” he said. “There’s a lot of open space near Tustin and Irvine neighborhoods.”

Hughan surmised that the mountain lion was tracking a deer, its normal prey.

“Mountain lions are pretty patient,” he said. “Adult lions have a range of about 250 square miles, and juveniles 150. They bed down during the day and then come out again at night. Problem is, they can get lost.”

Mountain lions, which are not endangered, number about 6,000 throughout California. Hughan said they have plenty of deer to feast on in Orange County — so the mountain lion that showed up in Tustin was not in desperate straits.

When possible, Fish and Wildlife employees tranquilize displaced cougars and transport them back to their habitat, Hughan said. Apparently, this mountain lion found its way home or was hit by a car since no more sightings have been reported, he said.

California counts 15 mountain lion attacks on people since 1986. Only one was fatal, and all occurred in rural settings.

Hughan advises pet owners to keep cats and dogs indoors when not on leashes during walks.

Alisen Dupre said she is well aware of that familiar admonition.

“I have never not had a cat, and they’ve all been indoor-outdoor cats,” she said. “Cats love the outdoors.”

But for Shadow, that freedom came with a high price.

“My son is still trying to process our loss,” she said. “He told me, ‘Now Shadow is in heaven with Grandma and Grandma is petting her.”

Despite her family’s grief, Dupre said, she harbors no animosity toward Shadow’s likely hunter.

“Am I upset? Absolutely. Am I angry with the mountain lion? No. We are the ones living in its natural environment.”