TEMECULA -- More than a week after mountain lion tracks were discovered in the rural Meadowview community, no trace of the big cat has been reported, officials said Monday.

Meanwhile, a horse that allegedly was attacked by the lion has been moved to an enclosed stable and is out of danger, said Judy Chick, whose daughter owns the horse. The horse is for sale, and Chick said several people have expressed interest.

"Everyone loves him," Chick said. "He's all healed up."

A state wildlife biologist discovered mountain lion tracks outside Chick's home on Aug. 19 and confirmed what he considered claw marks on the horse, leading him to issue Chick a permit to kill the lion should she see it.

But some are questioning the alleged mountain lion encounter, which reportedly happened in an open corral facing the large meadow behind the Chicks' home. Chick told wildlife officials that, on several occasions, she awoke in the night and heard the horse stomping frantically and later discovered the wounds.

Vicki Long, a La Cresta resident and mountain lion advocate, visited the horse a few days after the tracks were found, and said the wounds on the horse were too minor to warrant the state Department of Fish and Game's permit to kill a lion. Long is a member of the nonprofit Mountain Lion Foundation and helped gather signatures for a 1990 voter initiative that outlawed mountain lion hunting in California.

"Obviously, this was a misread attack," Long said. "Mountain lions have huge claws. I expected to see something that looked like knife wounds."

Long, who admitted she has no training or scientific background to back up her claim, said she hired a veterinarian to check out the horse and he also questioned the attack.

Reached by phone Monday, Dr. Marc Laxineta said the marks on the horse likely were caused by a skin condition or the horse scraping against something. Still, Laxineta added that it is hard to determine exactly what happened.

"None of us can say with confidence one way or the other, but logic tells me that it is very unlikely that the wounds were anything I would expect to see from the claws or jaws of a lion, " Laxineta said.

But the wildlife biologist who issued the permit said Monday that not only did the evidence justify issuing the permit, the law required him to do so.

Fish and Game biologist Kevin Brennan, an authority on mountain lions, said he agrees that the wounds were minor but the parallel scratches he saw matched the width of a mountain lion's claws. That, coupled with the paw prints he and local law enforcement officials found on the Chicks' property and the trails nearby, made it necessary to issue the permit under the state's Fish and Game law.

Brennan said it is extremely rare for mountain lions to roam east of Interstate 15 and north Highway 79 South and he has not received any credible reports of a mountain lion in that area since then.

"It's peculiar that one showed up there -- but there was evidence that a mountain lion was in that area," Brennan said.

Temecula Police Chief Jim Domenoe said he has heard no reports of mountain lion sightings since he last saw paw prints in the neighborhood on Aug. 20.

Meanwhile, people seem to be going about their normal lives in Meadowview, an affluent neighborhood that surrounds a large meadow in eastern Temecula. Signs that were posted in the meadow warning of a mountain lion's presence have been removed, and about 30 residents went on a moonlight horse ride through the meadow last Saturday night, said Jan Austin, a board member with the Meadowview Homeowner's Association who is chairwoman of the equestrian committee.

Austin said regardless of whether the mountain lion was there, people living in that area should always exercise some caution when using the trails.

"It's like earthquakes," Austin said. "You should be prepared, but you shouldn't spend every moment of your day thinking about them."

Contact staff writer Michael Buchanan at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or mbuchanan@californian.com.