Authorities are called to a residential neighborhood in Des Moines, Iowa, and find a mountain lion, which they eventually shoot.

From the description, it appears to be a younger lion, and it likely found itself in the suburbs of Des Moines in the process of looking for it's own territory to stake out.  Often when all the wild lands are divided up between the mature lions, the young ones will strike out seeking their own, and then you get ones like this coming into and around town.  The population of lions is high enough that there is no easy territory for the next generation to claim, so your backyard becomes fair game.  We see this relatively frequently here in California where it has been illegal to hunt them for decades and their numbers are now quite high.

I live in a rural area south of a large city, and hard up against the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  A few years after we moved out here, my wife swears she saw one cross our yard, in no particular hurry.

We now always keep at least two big dogs around, which will at least hopefully discourage the juvenile lions from hanging around.

Otherwise, there will be the application of the 3S rule, as like the suburban citizens of Des Moines, we can't have a full grown mountain lion hanging around the house.