EISPIRATEN

Tom Stienstra, Chronicle Outdoors Writer

Friday, February 5, 2010

Two men on a hike in a San Mateo County park came face-to-face with a pair of mountain lions, swung a stick to try to drive them away and hustled back to their car as the cougars followed them, state officials say.

Pescadero Creek County Park (Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle)Mountain
The incident took place Sunday at Pescadero Creek County Park near La Honda and was verified by game wardens from the state Department of Fish and Game. Officials closed the park until Thursday as they looked for the mountain lions, without success.

The incident was one of the most dramatic verified showdowns in the Bay Area between humans and the expanding mountain lion population.

"We found actual tracks and our tracking dogs picked up on the scent right off," said game warden Patrick Foy. "It was very obvious to us it was a credible story with real lions. We put the hounds on the ground and they struck a scent immediately.

"Unfortunately, the lions were successful in escaping," Foy said. "There's two aggressive lions ... out there."
Residents warned

San Mateo County officials put out calls to all residents in the vicinity of Loma Mar and La Honda, the settlements closest to the county park, and posted warnings. After being closed for four days, the park reopened Thursday.

The county issued another alert that a mountain lion had been seen Wednesday night in La Honda, a couple of miles north of the park. There was no way of knowing whether it was one of the lions that confronted the hikers.

There have been rare attacks by mountain lions on hikers, mountain bikers and joggers elsewhere in California, but there has not been a confirmed attack in the Bay Area since a rabid cougar mauled a Sunday school teacher and one of her students near Morgan Hill in 1909. The two died of rabies.
Hiked off trail

Sunday's face-off started when two brothers in their early 50s headed out for a hike at Pescadero Creek County Park, a remote, lightly visited open space with no facilities.

The two brothers, who asked not to be named in a Fish and Game report on the incident, told game wardens they occasionally enjoy straying from the trail "to see what's on the other side of the bush," according to Foy.

They hiked on Camp Pomponio Road, which goes through middle of park, and about 10 minutes in, wandered a few hundred yards off the trail, Foy said.

Near a creek, in a clearing at the edge of a densely vegetated area, a mountain lion emerged and walked right up to one of the hikers.

"The hiker shouted aggressively, but the lion did not go away," Foy said. "So he picked up a big stick and swung at the lion. His brother came to his side and a second lion started closing in."

Foy said the hiker never struck either cougar but eventually "managed to drive off the lions."
Lions on their trail

The hikers then started to return to their car, but looked back and saw the lions were following them. "You could see them the whole time," one told game wardens.

The brothers described the lions as about thigh-high, Foy said, probably about 125 to 140 pounds, typical for a female lion and a yearling still traveling together.

Pescadero Creek County Park, along with adjoining Sam McDonald, Memorial and Heritage Grove county parks and Portola Redwoods State Park, comprise nearly 10,000 acres of contiguous parkland that includes redwood forests, grassland foothills and the headwaters of Pescadero Creek and other streams.

"It's an awesome area," Foy said. "It's amazing how remote it is, being so close to the Bay Area."

Although mountain lion attacks are rare, they have become more numerous in the past couple of decades. According to Fish and Game records, all but three of the confirmed attacks on people in California since 1890 have happened in the past 25 years.

The increase coincided with state voters' approval of a 1990 initiative designating mountain lions as a protected species, even though they were not threatened or endangered. The lions filled existing habitat and then expanded their range, at the same time the human population was moving farther into previously open space

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z0ehxsWHBQ

I saw this on a biking forum earlier. Stienstra writes in a much different tack than the typical writer on issues such as this. He is a hunter and doesn't follow the typical "poor creature" model. This passage made me think of that.
"The increase coincided with state voters' approval of a 1990 initiative designating mountain lions as a protected species, even though they were not threatened or endangered."


Not so sure if I'd call it an attack; more like stalking. Will the DFG add it to this page?

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion/attacks.html

I read the word "Cougar" and thought I was gonna read a different kind of story when I clicked the link. . .

Glad to hear the hikers escaped unharmed.

gregp909 wrote:I read the word "Cougar" and thought I was gonna read a different kind of story when I clicked the link. . .

Glad to hear the hikers escaped unharmed.

I would converse with EnFuego.............

hmm I've hiked there a couple of times...

Rumpled wrote:I saw this on a biking forum earlier. Stienstra writes in a much different tack than the typical writer on issues such as this. He is a hunter and doesn't follow the typical "poor creature" model. This passage made me think of that.
"The increase coincided with state voters' approval of a 1990 initiative designating mountain lions as a protected species, even though they were not threatened or endangered."

The 1990 initiative (Proposition 117) did not ban sport hunting of cougars in California. What it did was place the already-existing ban into the state constitution. The ban was enacted in 1971 when Governor Ronald Reagan signed a moratorium on the sport hunting of cougars. This moratorium remained in place until 1990, when Proposition 117 passed.

Voyageur,
I think you have a couple of facts mistaken.
I thought the initial moratorium was in 1973. This link
http://www.mountainlion.org/history.asp
shows that RR signed it in '72; meaning the moratorium probably took effect some time after - possibly '73.
'71 to '73 really no matter.
The timeline I linked to also has some issues, a five year moratorium ended as a 15 year one.
In the interim until Prop 117 went into effect, the cougar was under the control of the legislature and Fish and Game Commission; like every other native species. These two bodies were free to do as they pleased with cougars and all other animals.

Prop 117 put cougars into a class of specially protected species; removing them from the control of the Fish and Game Commission. They are the only species with this designation.

Sport hunting was banned with Prop 117. Between 1971-3 and 1990, there were only moratoria and nonseasons. Cougars were classified as game animals and no seasons were opened. Sport hunting was allowed under the law until Prop 117; now it is not.

The Stienstra article implied that hunting ended in 1990 and linked this event with an increase in attacks on humans (an increase from zero if one ignores a couple in 1986). If I read Voyageur correctly, he is saying that there was no hunting (or no significant hunting) for a long time prior to 1990. That would mean that the passing of Proposition 117 did not have anything to do with an increase in attacks (unless one thinks that cougars pay close attention to our laws).

Rumpled wrote:Stienstra writes in a much different tack than the typical writer on issues such as this. He is a hunter and doesn't follow the typical "poor creature" model.

Yeah, I thought this was a particularly bizarre take on the situation:

"The incident was one of the most dramatic verified showdowns in the Bay Area between humans and the expanding mountain lion population."

No chance the outrageous rate of habitat destruction during the last 25 years has anything to do with increased mountain lion sitings, eh?

simonov wrote:

Rumpled wrote:Stienstra writes in a much different tack than the typical writer on issues such as this. He is a hunter and doesn't follow the typical "poor creature" model.

Yeah, I thought this was a particularly bizarre take on the situation:

"The incident was one of the most dramatic verified showdowns in the Bay Area between humans and the expanding mountain lion population."

No chance the outrageous rate of habitat destruction during the last 25 years has anything to do with increased mountain lion sitings, eh?

We seem to have a hunter who does not follow the "poor creature" model (whatever that is) and a reported who does not follow the "base your reporting on facts" model.

References to an expanding mountain lion population should be backed by some evidence that such expansion exists. That appears to be lacking. CA DFG says this:

Are mountain lion numbers increasing or decreasing in California?
Without an ongoing statewide mountain lion study, it is impossible to know what is happening on a statewide basis with populations. However, there are indications that mountain lion activity, such as depredation, attacks on people, and predation on prey populations, peaked in 1996, then decreased somewhat, and have remained stable for the past several years.

For various reasons, lion hunting has not happened since somewhere about '71-'73.
Prop 117 permanently banned hunting (unless it were to be reversed) and gives $30 million a year for 30 years to buy habitat to help lions ( and everything else). Honestly, that money makes up somewhat for the state's lack of spending for habitat and recreation lands. I do have an issue with the types of land management and access that has occured with these properties. Many of these lands have been handed over to private entities and the public has been kept out of them. For a few years, a third of that money went to the Santa Monicas.
http://www.mountainlion.org/prop117guide.asp

So, nothing changed greatly in 1990 with respect to hunting activity.

As far as the population growing; that may depend upon the time frame one considers. Real data is scarce, but estimates from '71 or so say only 600 in the state. The '96 estimate was 6000 or so and that or so is considered similar now. So, if one looked at '71 to now; one would say the population is growing. If you were to consider the last ten years or so; the population seems relatively stable.

As far as whether hunting lions instills fear in lions and reduces interactions with man; I think it does. I disagree with the gist of #5 here
http://www.mountainlion.org/117_7_Facts.asp
According to Dr. Rick Hopkins, who has done extensive studies of cougars in California, trophy hunting can not keep Californians safe from mountain lions. As far as he is concerned, "a dead cougar cannot and does not teach the living lions to fear man."

While true that a dead cougar can teach nothing; most lion hunting is done with hounds. Most lions pursued by hunters with dogs are not killed; but probably the lions feel that pursuit is a negative experience. I believe that type of experience leads lions to avoid interaction with man and dogs. We now have many generations of lions in this state with none of this negative reinforcement. With hunting or without it, the overall hazard of man from lions is still extremely low.

The biggest hazard to lions and man is decreased habitat. Our ever expanding population and development is out of control.

Here is the actual text of Prop 117
http://www.mountainlion.org/117_text.asp

I agree that one would think that hunting would have the net effect of increasing fear of humans. I would not argue that it is necessary to change anything, though. Well, we could think about limiting our numbers, but that's another controversy.

Is there any information with regard to lion encounters in areas (such as the San Gorgonio Wilderness, Cucamonga Wilderness, etc) that have not been subject to habitat reduction during the last quarter century?

All the human/lion encounters I have heard of in recent years have occurred in areas not far from recent residential development.

I believe that there have been two mountain lion attacks on people in California in the last 15 years. One was near what passes for civilization in Orange County (sorry, Orangers -- just a little joke) and the other was in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, which is not exactly a heavily-populated area. Not a lot of data points.

AlanK,
Five verified attacks by CADFG in the last fifteen years. 2 fatal.
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion/attacks.html

DFG tends to underreport a bit as they hold a high standard of lion verification. There are some reports of missing kids (one in Pinyon Pines?) that they don't count. Google tchester's site.

DFG also downplays many sightings as something else. Even if they discount 80% of sightings; reported sightings are goin up as we move more into the wildland interface.

Simonov,
Lions mostly eat deer, deer mostly like the oak woodland type areas that we keep developing. Areas up high like the SanG's have some deer but not all that many. Lions have been noted as a high mortality factor for bighorn in the local mountains and some desert areas.

Rumpled wrote:AlanK,
Five verified attacks by CADFG in the last fifteen years. 2 fatal.
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion/attacks.html

OK, I was sloppy. There have been three separate attacks in the last 14 years 11 months. There were two people attacked in the Whiting Ranch incident in June of 2004. Maybe you want to call that two separate attacks. However, there was no actual evidence of an attack on the man and evidence points to a heart attack. The problem is that the cougar ate the guy's heart and left none of the usual signs of attacking the guy first. I omitted the other June 2004 attack -- my mistake, no excuse. So, three separate attack incidents since March of 1995.

Sightings are another story. I have had a sighting and I did not report it. Until right now. It was in August, 1987 -- Riverside County on a trail near Railroad Canyon Road.

I for one am thinking of increasing the cougar population. Imagine the scene on a congested highway when cougars start prowling about. Howling and scratches will surely make commuters think twice about driving to work.

Oh, the mountain lions, I don't think they're too much of an issue.

AlanK wrote: Sightings are another story. I have had a sighting and I did not report it. Until right now. It was in August, 1987 -- Riverside County on a trail near Railroad Canyon Road.

I'd be embarrassed to even mention being in Riverside...that takes a lot of guts!

AlanK wrote:my mistake, no excuse.

-1 beer.

HikeUp wrote:

AlanK wrote:my mistake, no excuse.

-1 beer.

Life is cruel to screwups.

AlanK
Not criticizing your count; you were pretty close. The Mark J Reynolds death is apparently not definitive; I'm not sure what to think.
I think I may have counted incorrectly as well.
(Crap, do I lose a beer, too?!)

I'm still waiting for my first sighting outside of a zoo, bar or shopping mall.

Rumpled wrote:AlanK
Not criticizing your count; you were pretty close. The Mark J Reynolds death is apparently not definitive; I'm not sure what to think.
I think I may have counted incorrectly as well.
(Crap, do I lose a beer, too?!)

I'm still waiting for my first sighting outside of a zoo, bar or shopping mall.

Lose a beer? You may be ok if Hike Up doesn't find out.

Zoo. Bar. shopping mall. Are those 3 separate things?

Rumpled - to be fair you lose a beer too.

Got to teach you people how to count!

Too late, I drank it at lunch.

Zé wrote:

AlanK wrote: Sightings are another story. I have had a sighting and I did not report it. Until right now. It was in August, 1987 -- Riverside County on a trail near Railroad Canyon Road.

I'd be embarrassed to even mention being in Riverside...that takes a lot of guts!

HAHAHAH

+10 BEERS