Mike Phillips, wildlife specialist with the Santa Clara County Vector Control, has been mapping the coyote sightings in the county as the predators have been spotted all over Almaden Valley, from the gated community of the Villas of Almaden to the busy urban intersection of Camden Avenue and Kooser Road.

But in that particular neighborhood, the coyotes had skedaddled.

"I've been noticing the coyotes in the area have just up and disappeared," Phillips said. "I'm curious, now the cat is out of there, if [the coyotes] are going to move back in."

Lon Dunaway woke up to dogs barking at 5:30 a.m. on April 26. Assuming it was nothing, he tried to get back to sleep. But when the dogs wouldn't quiet down, he looked outside a little while later to see a cat's tail hanging down his neighbor's tree into his back yard--a big cat's tail.

A mountain lion had made its way into a neighborhood off of Los Gatos-Almaden Road, and his neighbor's dogs chased it up a tree. Officers with the San Jose Police Department, aided by the California Department of Fish and Game, determined the cat to be a threat to public safety and killed the animal with a shotgun at about 8 a.m. Dunaway said he believes they shot it from the backyard of his Roxanne Drive home.

"I wasn't too wild about it," he said. "I would have preferred that they saved it, but I understand what they had to do."

Fish and game spokesman Troy Swauger said the police made the right decision--any attempt to catch the animal alive and relocate it would have caused it to flee, he said. Since tree branches made it impossible to throw a net over it, the only other option would be to tranquilize the mountain lion.

"Once you've shot an animal with a tranquilizer, you've wounded it, and it's not going to stay in that tree," Swauger said. "It's going to take off running."

Mountain lions can run much faster than humans, he said, and can jump over 10-foot fences with little effort.

The neighborhood is about a quarter-mile from Noddin Elementary School and even closer to Leigh High School.

Leigh Principal Rick Costanzo said he was kept informed of the situation and was prepared to lock down the school if necessary. He was relieved to hear that the police had the situation under control.

"We were going to have STAR testing," he said. "The last thing we want to do is create any classroom disturbances."

Noddin Elementary secretary Janice Perry said she was disappointed the cat could not be saved.

"If they were concerned about the tranquilizer not acting quickly, I know that with humans, they can judge weight and determine doses based on that," Perry said.

Swauger said it's not that simple, because the tranquilizer still needs time to circulate through the bloodstream--time during which the animal would flee.

"Animal lovers who disagree with our methods will say they have seen it on [television] that a rogue elephant was taken down by a tiny tranquilizer dart in a minute, but these people have no concept of how TV editing works," he said. "You're seeing three hours edited down to about three minutes."

Arlean Moses, a resident of the Belgatos neighborhood and mother of three Noddin students, said she thought the killing of the mountain lion was appropriate given the situation.

"Obviously, you want to do everything you can to protect life on both ends," Moses said. "But if it's a choice between the life of an animal and the life of my child, the child wins."

Mountain lions are being spotted with more regularity in San Jose's urban-wilderness interface areas, and on April 30, another mountain lion, believed to be larger than the one shot off of Los Gatos-Almaden Road, was seen near a residential neighborhood.

Police issued a warning that morning that a mountain lion was sighted at the north end of Alum Rock Park near Rock Canyon road and Penitencia Creek.

"This cat's bigger than the one that was shot and killed on Tuesday," said Sgt. Nick Muyo of the San Jose Police Department.

The animal in Alum Rock Park is believed to be between 80 and 100 pounds, Muyo said. The mountain lion was seen near at least two residential backyards and a digital photograph confirmed the cat was in the area, Muyo added.

However, in a search of the neighborhood, police were unable to find the animal.

Anne Ward Ernst contributed to this story.