This Cougar Wandered Into a Shopping Center. That Proved to Be a Fatal Mistake.

On Friday, a cougar was spotted wandering through a Sandy, Utah shopping center.

By Friday evening, the big cat had been shot with a tranquilizer dart — and passed away.

"It just never came out of the effect of the drug," Scott Root, of the Department of Wildlife Resources, told KSL-TV. "It's uncommon to have wildlife pass away under sedation, but it does happen."

Raw video shot by onlooker Josh Pratt shows the tense moments just before the cat was shot.

Wildlife Resources officials said they had hoped to return the cougar, which had acted non-aggressively, to the wild, but instead they'll be taking the body to the Utah Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory on Monday to find out more about how the animal died.

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