Video shows sliding doors open for mountain lion as it passes luxury hotel in Arizona

A luxury resort in Arizona came close to having a mountain lion as a guest, when the hotel’s automatic doors slid open just as the predator walked past.

Fortunately, the mountain lion was more frightened than curious, and declined the invitation.

It happened Monday, April 25, at Loews Ventana Canyon in Tucson, a 398-room resort with two pools, four tennis courts and “sweeping desert mountain views.”

Mountain lions can grow to 8 feet and 150 pounds, making them an intimidating part of the scenery.

Arizona Game and Fish shared surveillance video of the moment on social media, showing the mountain lion crouched for a split second, looked inside, then sprinted down the sidewalk. It all plays out in just 10 seconds.

“Its age and startle response suggest that it was just learning its way around and not dangerous,” the department wrote. “Mtn. lions are common in the Sabino Canyon area, but incidents are few.”

Arizona mountain lions are definitely “capable of seriously injuring or killing humans,” but prefer to avoid human contact, state experts say.

That attitude changes only during droughts, wildfires and moments when their prey (deer, javelina and rabbits) run through urban sprawl, the state reports.

The resort surveillance video has been watched more than 5,000 times on Facebook and 10,000 times on Twitter as of April 28, with some commenters joking it was luxury prices that sent the big cat running.

Others noted the hotel and its guests got lucky the mountain lion was afraid of sliding glass doors.

“Can you imagine if he strolled right on in. That would have been startling to say the least for hotel guests,” one woman tweeted.

“This is cool but would scare the hell out of me if I were coming out of those doors at that moment,” a man posted.

“Could you imagine that chaos,” another wrote.

This story was originally published April 28, 2022 at 8:53 AM with the headline "Video shows sliding doors open for mountain lion as it passes luxury hotel in Arizona."