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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/06/27/INGTO7A93B1.DTL
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a mountain lion living in the foothills above Mountain View or Palo Alto. Let's say a couple of years ago, you were born along with one or two siblings. Now you are young adults. All you want to do is get away from mom and the rest of the family.
Unfortunately for you, either other mountain lions or, more likely, a ranch or estate owner, has taken all of the view lots and creekside properties in the mountains behind you. So where do you go? Down. Down to the suburbs, cities and towns between Interstate 280 and the bay.
You soon find your life imperiled. Not only by police officers with no training in wild animal control, but by the very same things that endanger all of the humans down here. Drunk drivers and distracted drivers. Muggings, random gunfire, gang shootouts. Pit bulls.
As the mountain lion, you have to negotiate this extremely hostile environment created by the mammals that walk on two legs. Yet, those mammals consider you the threat.
The truth is that every year exponentially more people are killed or injured by one of the hazards of modern life mentioned above than have ever been harmed by a mountain lion. The Department of Fish and Game has verified a total of 12 mountain lion attacks on humans since 1890 -- and just half of these proved fatal.
Every time there is a spate of mountain lion encounters, embittered trophy hunters like to blame 1990's Proposition 117. That initiative, which voters passed into law, placed a permanent ban on sport hunting of mountain lions.
Now, mountain lions suddenly are everywhere -- from Morgan Hill to the East Bay. It seems possible that any day now, someone will come home to find one lounging on the couch, eating an It's-It and watching the Animal Channel.
No one wants to be mauled or have their soft organs dined on by a mountain lion. But encounters with cougars are hardly a surprise when about half of California is considered mountain lion habitat. In all likelihood, the tawny predators are simply looking to get away from their own tribe.
Many people do want to live in or near an ecosystem that is healthy enough to support and maintain a broad range of creatures, not only deer and raccoons. They want the wilds to be just that -- wild. There's something reassuring about knowing that our environment can sustain something besides chemically grown lawns, SUVs and shopping malls.
In California, humans managed to kill off all of the wolves and grizzly bears in the early 20th century. To see what remains of bighorn sheep populations, you need to hike into remote parts of the Sierra or the Anza- Borrego Desert. Elk are confined in remnant populations on a few state and federal lands. Resurrecting the California condor has cost millions of dollars. There are lots of black bears, but they are mostly confined to wooded mountain habitat.
The mountain lion is the last large animal in California that exists in healthy numbers and that inspires wonder, awe and, yes, a little fear. It simply needs to be understood and respected for what is -- a powerful, often hungry, predator.
It also matters that the mountain lion is a major member of the food chain. In recent years, explosions of deer populations in the East have caused an increase in car accidents and deer-borne diseases. According to the Insurance Information Institute, over 20,000 deer were involved in car-related accidents in New Jersey in 2001 or the 51,000 such accidents in Georgia.
One reason deer populations keep growing is that the eastern cougar, along with the timber wolf, was trapped and shot out of existence 100 years ago, except for an inbred remnant population dying out in the swamps of Florida. There is nothing left to control deer except hunters and car bumpers.
If we rid ourselves of the state's last major wild predator, we would be left with a burgeoning deer population likely to spread Lyme disease via ticks and mayhem via our roadways. As it is now, a deer in the road is much more likely to cause an auto accident than a mountain lion is to attack a hiker.
The answer, some hunters might say, is to go at both deer and mountain lions with both barrels blazing. Yet, renewed mountain lion hunting well might eventually wipe the felines out, as it did the gray wolf in almost all of North America.
There is a simpler, less bloodthirsty solution. As with distracted and drunk drivers, as with dangerous pit bulls, what will keep people safe is education and responsibility.
What begins with the smacking of feline lips over a horse or two on the outskirts of town can quickly evolve into the big cats attempting to pick off their domesticated cousins from the back porch of a house just off El Camino Real. The fat tabby that roams the neighborhood should be kept inside. That goes for many pet dogs as well, especially around dawn and dusk, the times mountain lions are most likely to be searching for food.
Certainly, we aren't going to keep children inside, nor should we. This is why law enforcement officers in cities and suburbs bordering mountain lion habitat must have tranquilizing equipment on hand and must kill mountain lions that truly endanger people, just as the law requires.
This is how we should deal with the very rare mountain lion that becomes too neighborly.
John Fall is an East Bay writer.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are a mountain lion living in the foothills above Mountain View or Palo Alto. Let's say a couple of years ago, you were born along with one or two siblings. Now you are young adults. All you want to do is get away from mom and the rest of the family.
Unfortunately for you, either other mountain lions or, more likely, a ranch or estate owner, has taken all of the view lots and creekside properties in the mountains behind you. So where do you go? Down. Down to the suburbs, cities and towns between Interstate 280 and the bay.
You soon find your life imperiled. Not only by police officers with no training in wild animal control, but by the very same things that endanger all of the humans down here. Drunk drivers and distracted drivers. Muggings, random gunfire, gang shootouts. Pit bulls.
As the mountain lion, you have to negotiate this extremely hostile environment created by the mammals that walk on two legs. Yet, those mammals consider you the threat.
The truth is that every year exponentially more people are killed or injured by one of the hazards of modern life mentioned above than have ever been harmed by a mountain lion. The Department of Fish and Game has verified a total of 12 mountain lion attacks on humans since 1890 -- and just half of these proved fatal.
Every time there is a spate of mountain lion encounters, embittered trophy hunters like to blame 1990's Proposition 117. That initiative, which voters passed into law, placed a permanent ban on sport hunting of mountain lions.
Now, mountain lions suddenly are everywhere -- from Morgan Hill to the East Bay. It seems possible that any day now, someone will come home to find one lounging on the couch, eating an It's-It and watching the Animal Channel.
No one wants to be mauled or have their soft organs dined on by a mountain lion. But encounters with cougars are hardly a surprise when about half of California is considered mountain lion habitat. In all likelihood, the tawny predators are simply looking to get away from their own tribe.
Many people do want to live in or near an ecosystem that is healthy enough to support and maintain a broad range of creatures, not only deer and raccoons. They want the wilds to be just that -- wild. There's something reassuring about knowing that our environment can sustain something besides chemically grown lawns, SUVs and shopping malls.
In California, humans managed to kill off all of the wolves and grizzly bears in the early 20th century. To see what remains of bighorn sheep populations, you need to hike into remote parts of the Sierra or the Anza- Borrego Desert. Elk are confined in remnant populations on a few state and federal lands. Resurrecting the California condor has cost millions of dollars. There are lots of black bears, but they are mostly confined to wooded mountain habitat.
The mountain lion is the last large animal in California that exists in healthy numbers and that inspires wonder, awe and, yes, a little fear. It simply needs to be understood and respected for what is -- a powerful, often hungry, predator.
It also matters that the mountain lion is a major member of the food chain. In recent years, explosions of deer populations in the East have caused an increase in car accidents and deer-borne diseases. According to the Insurance Information Institute, over 20,000 deer were involved in car-related accidents in New Jersey in 2001 or the 51,000 such accidents in Georgia.
One reason deer populations keep growing is that the eastern cougar, along with the timber wolf, was trapped and shot out of existence 100 years ago, except for an inbred remnant population dying out in the swamps of Florida. There is nothing left to control deer except hunters and car bumpers.
If we rid ourselves of the state's last major wild predator, we would be left with a burgeoning deer population likely to spread Lyme disease via ticks and mayhem via our roadways. As it is now, a deer in the road is much more likely to cause an auto accident than a mountain lion is to attack a hiker.
The answer, some hunters might say, is to go at both deer and mountain lions with both barrels blazing. Yet, renewed mountain lion hunting well might eventually wipe the felines out, as it did the gray wolf in almost all of North America.
There is a simpler, less bloodthirsty solution. As with distracted and drunk drivers, as with dangerous pit bulls, what will keep people safe is education and responsibility.
What begins with the smacking of feline lips over a horse or two on the outskirts of town can quickly evolve into the big cats attempting to pick off their domesticated cousins from the back porch of a house just off El Camino Real. The fat tabby that roams the neighborhood should be kept inside. That goes for many pet dogs as well, especially around dawn and dusk, the times mountain lions are most likely to be searching for food.
Certainly, we aren't going to keep children inside, nor should we. This is why law enforcement officers in cities and suburbs bordering mountain lion habitat must have tranquilizing equipment on hand and must kill mountain lions that truly endanger people, just as the law requires.
This is how we should deal with the very rare mountain lion that becomes too neighborly.
John Fall is an East Bay writer.
What with the referendum on hunting mountain lion in the state, the population is rising past the environment's ability to sustain them in the wild away from civilization. Cats have VERY large individual territories for hunting and young cats are pushed out. Also, animals are quite the creatures of habit. Once they find easy pickings, they continue to exploit the situation. Just like the maneating leopards now panicking a part of India. People are also breeding like lemmings and need space that was once the habitat of predators. These "wannabe" country folk are a large part of the problem since they plant vegetation the ungulates like and throw meat scraps out, and leave fluffie's food out on the porch.