Mountain lion caught on camera in Duluth, Minnesota, backyard

Mountain lion spotted in Duluth

A rare sighting of a mountain lion was captured on security camera in a Duluth neighborhood early Monday morning.

DULUTH, Minn. (FOX 9) - A mountain lion was captured on a security camera in a rare sighting while walking through a backyard in Duluth, Minnesota, early Monday morning.

The mountain lion was spotted in the backyard of a home in the Kenwood neighborhood of Duluth. Resident Nathaniel Smith explained he was woken up by a noise around 3 a.m. and checked his security cameras only to find a mountain lion walking across his lawn.

"I can’t believe what I’m seeing," Smith wrote on Facebook.

Mountain lion sightings in Minnesota are rare, with only 51 confirmed sightings since 2004, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The DNR added it gets around 50 reported sightings every year, but most turn out to be large house cats or other animals. There is no known population of mountain lions living in Minnesota.