Posted on 07/20/2008 1:02:04 PM PDT by jazusamo
A mountain lion is chased up a tree in downtown Palo Alto. Another one is shot after mauling a Chihuahua at a Watsonville mobile home park. In Los Gatos, a lion hits a car while trying to cross Summit Road.
Peninsula and Silicon Valley residents rarely ponder the lives of mountain lions trying to survive in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But urban development — the razing of habitat for homes, roads and parking lots — is the chief obstacle the wild cats face every day as they hunt for deer and fulfill their instinct to roam hundreds of miles, looking for new territory.
Such close encounters are a sign that mountain lions, which can require up to 200 square miles of uninterrupted range, are increasingly hemmed in by development.
"We haven't provided cougars in the Santa Cruz range many opportunities to completely avoid humans. You can't go very far without crossing a road. This fragmentation has affected how cougars are trying to use the landscape up there," said Rick Hopkins, a San Jose-based wildlife consultant who has been tracking the movements of mountain lions for 30 years.
Ever resilient, mountain lions cope with these difficulties by cutting across backyards and attempting to leap across highways, paddle down rivers, or squeeze through drainage culverts underneath busy roads. Occasionally, one will take a wrong turn and get shot for wandering through a town like Palo Alto.
Nobody knows how many mountain lions exist in the Santa Cruz Mountains — most estimates put the number between 30 and 40, based on the fact that available mountain habitat covers about 780 square miles, the smallest continuous habitat zone in a mountain range south of Marin. The rugged Northern Diablo Range, just across the Bay, is three times the size of the Santa Cruz range...
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Ping!
Boo fricking hoo. I’ve come across one of those things in the wild. They are terrifying. I wouldn’t mind if every single one in the wild was gone.
We’re fairly sure that we have three lions in my neck of the woods. Two are adults and one was half grown last year. A neighbor has motion detecting cameras in the forest and he’s found their favorite trail.
Long ago we very rarely saw them. But now we’re even seeing them in the daytime. Kind of unnerving.
But I’m against shooting them; they are quite efficient at keeping the deer population under control.
Me too. I came upon one back in the mid 1990’s while mountain biking up on Sweeny ridge in San Bruno, CA (that would be the north end of the same mountain range referenced in this article)
I agree but the big concern is the cougar losing its fear of man. Though rare they have and do attack humans, even adults have been killed.
People that live in sparsley populated areas expect to see wild animals and generally know the danger but many living in housing tracts are not aware of the danger to them and their children.
Agreed. Deer are out of control all over CA, eating everything in sight and spreading ticks. I know otherwise enlightened liberals who have taken to their windows with high-powered pellet guns of late (LOL!).
The critters have smartened up, so you rarely see deer road kill anymore. The lions are the only thing left. I can’t really see the state letting bow hunters in the local parks and open space.
“But I’m against shooting them; they are quite efficient at keeping the deer population under control.”
Deer are best controlled by hunting. Hunters can remove bucks, does, whatever. Lions remove whatever they want to kill nad eat.
Lastly, hunters don’t kill and eat humans. Lions do.
Yeah, we’re a bit remote up here and aren’t surprised to see the lions, although we’re very cautious of them. But to see one in a subdivision, that’s a whole other thing. Up here they eat lots of deer, get the occasional wild turkey, and who knows what else.
Yep, the enviros will use any means they can to stop development, logging, mining, drilling, etc. It kinda started with the spotted owl and has progressed from there.
“I can’t really see the state letting bow hunters in the local parks and open space.”
The enviro-socialists have taken over the game departments, thus the lack of hunting where the deer p[op[ulation indicates that hunting is a necessity.
Why do enviro-socialists dislike hunting? They don’t like the “gun community”, they tend towards animal rights delusions, and they use the “endangered critter of the day” to justify enlarged government ownership of land.
Increased socialism of America translates into more gooberment jobs for goobers like themselves AND it furthers their socialist wet dreams.
I know what you say about enviros infiltrating fish and game depts here in the Northwest is true as well as BLM and Forest Service depts.
Mountiainlions look good stuffed on a wall.
“But I’m against shooting them; they are quite efficient at keeping the deer population under control.”
So are hunters. I saw one last Christmas while visiting my parents. My dad said “well, they don’t attack unless they are afraid or hungry”. I said “yeah, not much of a chance that it will be one of those two things when coming upon someone walking or a kid playing”.
Thank God I was in my car and not walking. I stopped because I couldn’t believe it. It looked right at me and then ran off. Somehow I don’t think it would have ran off had I not been in my car.
“Yep, the enviros will use any means they can to stop development, logging, mining, drilling, etc. It kinda started with the spotted owl and has progressed from there.”
The spotted owl controversy going on the Pacific NW was how I learned the lesson of always having tissues in my purse. We were at a restaurant and I went in to use the restroom and there was big sign as I entered.....”Sorry, no toilet paper, try using a spotted owl”. Funny stuff but still made for a miserable lunch having a full bladder the whole time.
In a similar vein, I’ve seen bumper stickers here in Maine that say, “Oppose Logging? Then Use Plastic Instead of Toilet Paper.”
Some are more graphically worded than that, if you catch my drift.....
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people
who “love Nature” while deploring the “artificialities”
with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature.’ “
The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words,
which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part
of “Nature”, but beavers and their dams are.
But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie
absurdity.
In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by
beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams
erected by men (for the purposes of men) the “Naturist”
reveals his hatred for his own race, i.e. his own
self-hatred.
In the case,of “Naturists” such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot.
But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them;
pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and
H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have.
Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made
up of men and women, it strikes me as a fine arrangement
and perfectly “natural.”
LAZARUS LONG
I was never into science fiction and know little of Long but I certainly agree with that. As man increases in numbers it’s only logical that the balance of nature will change, it’s been happening for thousands of years.
I believe the enviros would be perfectly happy to pack humans into walled cities leaving vast areas to go untouched by man. Of course only if they could still have the comforts they enjoy now and could leave from time to time to enjoy nature as it was hundreds of years previous.
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