Students at Colorado University-Boulder said they were stranded in buildings for several hours when a mountain lion wandered onto campus.

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Housekeeper Tahnja Fernandez was the first to spot the male lion, which experts estimated to be about a year old and more than 100 pounds, perched in a tree Wednesday afternoon near Kittredge Pond, KDVR-TV, Denver, reported Thursday.

"I just thought it was a stuffed cat in the tree that somebody had made but then when I turned it actually followed my gaze," Fernandez said.

"The lion to me looked kind of frightened," freshman Hannah Butler said. "It was up there kind of curled up in a ball."

Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said officers tranquilized the animal and took it to the foothills west of Boulder.