Police were dispatched to a cougar sighting in the Columbia Village subdivision in southeast Boise at about 9:21 p.m. Sunday night.

The calling party told Ada County dispatch that the cat was running across a soccer field near Lake Forest Drive and South Kalmia Place.

It's the latest in a string of cougar sightings in the Boise area over the past six weeks. A dog was mauled Oct. 18 in the back yard of a home in Garden City, and traps were set Oct. 27 in the area near the Boise River. But after a week, the traps were removed — Fish & Game officials found no recent signs of the cat.

Other recent sightings were Nov. 5: A bicyclist reported seeing a cougar near the cemetery behind Fort Boise, and someone else reported seeing a cougar in the Foothills northwest of Bogus Basin Road and in the area of Warm Springs Road and the Idaho 21 bridge.

Officials believe cougars follow the river and/or deer into the Treasure Valley. If they stick around too long and get habituated to city life, they must be killed.

In May, a 2-year-old female weighing 50 pounds that had been seen near Boise State University and Julia Davis Park was shot and killed. In September 2011, a male cougar of similar age and size was shot and killed in Boise’s Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center parking lot.