Pedestrians aren’t the only ones using the American River Parkway. A mountain lion was spotted Aug. 25 on the American River bike trail, not far from Guy West Bridge.

Around 6 a.m., Sacramento resident Loretta Franzi was riding along the east side of the river between the Guy West Bridge and H Street Bridge when she saw what she described as a mountain lion in front of her. The cat moved off the path as Franzi rode by and then moved back into place after she had passed, according to the police report.

“It had me pretty shook up,” Franzi said. “It did a half circle of about 3 feet to avoid me, then continued like it was on a mission.”Franzi was too startled to immediately relate the incident, so her husband notified campus police, who then notified the Sacramento Police Department as well as Sacramento County Park Ranger Supervisor Steve Flannery.

“There had been a few sightings a week before, but it is really hard to identify a mountain lion from the identifications some people give,” Flannery said. “The tracks are usually covered up before anyone gets there.”

The cat was sandy colored and about 4 feet high with a profile a little longer than a stray dog, Franzi said.

“It was described as being about 60 pounds with no links on the tail and according to the size of it, it matches the description of a coyote,” said Dave Lydik, the chief ranger for Sacramento County Parks.

The sightings in the recent past caused an alert along the trail and forced park rangers to post warning signs upstream at Watt Avenue. Some officials in the department feel that many of the sightings are mistaken for coyotes.

“There is a coyote that is seen on the parkway on a regular basis that will trot right by you,” Lydik said.

None of the sightings have been confirmed, and one that was caught on video by a resident was examined and turned out to be a house cat mistaken for a mountain lion, Lydik said.

According to the park ranger department, there has never been an attack on the American River, and there have only been a handful reported in California since the turn of the century, most of which occurred in Southern California. “

We want people to be aware, and if they should encounter a mountain lion to make yourself look big, yell and don’t run away or it will chase you down,” Lydik said.