Officials have killed a cougar that was spotted in a tree just a few blocks from an elementary school on the east side of Kimball in the Nebraska Panhandle.

The animal was seen Saturday by a man who lives in the area, across U.S. Highway 30 from Gotte Park and a few blocks north of Mary Lynch Elementary.

A Nebraska Game and Parks officer tranquilized the 90-pound male. It was removed from the tree and then euthanized.

Police Chief Mark Simpson says the public was in danger because the cougar was inside city limits. Sam Wilson, of Nebraska Game and Parks, says the cougar was euthanized under the agency's policy on cougars that enter a community.

Cougars also are called mountain lions or pumas.