Wildlife officials order 4 mountain lions killed in El Dorado County
By David Bienick, KCRA-TV
RESCUE — Wildlife advocates said Monday that state officials should have considered alternatives after learning they ordered a mother mountain lion and her three offspring to be shot and killed in El Dorado County.
The killings happened last month in the community of Rescue, which is about three miles north of Shingle Springs.
The California Department of Fish and Game said it had received several complaints about the mountain lions and confirmed that at least one domestic goat had been killed by a mountain lion.
Jason Holley, a supervising wildlife biologist for the department, told KCRA 3 it was not clear if all four mountain lions had participated in the kill.
“That may or may not be true, about all four animals killing the animal that was confirmed dead. But what is very likely is that they all fed off of it, and they were all of huntable age, and they could all be killing animals in the area,” Holley said.
Holley said the young mountain lions were about 18 months old — an age at which he said they often leave the protection of their mother.
“Some of these cubs, or sub-adults, looked like they were 60 pounds,” Holley said.
Holley said the department had received a complaint from the owner of a goat herd in the area. He declined to identify the owner.
Holley said the state contacted an agent for the United States Department of Agriculture who confirmed that one of the owner’s goats had been killed by the mountain lions.
Holley said in such cases, state law requires that a permit to kill the animals be issued.
However, the Mountain Lion Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Sacramento, questioned the decision.
Executive Director Tim Dunbar said the goat owner should have done more to protect his herd.
Dunbar said even if the mother mountain lion had to be killed, the others could have been sent to zoos or wildlife preserves.
“Just off the top of my head, I would say there are 20 or so that are on a waiting list now, that would want to have a cub,” Dunbar said.
He also said in such cases, California should attempt to relocate young mountain lions to other parts of the state.
He said the state of Washington has been successfully doing so for the past two years.
Holley said California officials will attempt to place cubs younger than 4 months.
Dunbar is naive.
I think it is naive to be killing animals that do EXACTLY what they were born to do. How can we punish them for that? I feel very strongly that relocation would have been the best option and should have been the only option where cubs were involved. I feel so strongly about this, I am currently researching ways to voice my opinions and pursue protest against the laws and regulations that allow for this.
Totally agree with Amanda – We need to realize that we live in an environment along WITH the wildlife.
It’s naive to think we can just trap and move dangerous animals and all will be fine. You are often moving a problem, which becomes another persons problem. State agency budgets are stressed and there is substantial cost involved with relocation. Consider for a minute if a mountain lion were to attack YOUR child, pet, or YOU. Rare, but a possibility.
Greg, I wonder if you and Amanda would feel the same way when the mountain lion starts taking pets and children. . . which they WILL if they don’t learn to fear humans through hunting or other deterrents.
Rescue is ranch and farmland. It is humans’ natural instinct to protect OUR stuff too. Are we not as valuable as wildlife?
Amanda, relocation sounds great, as long as you dont spend any time learning about wildlife. If you take a lion, and just randomly drop it off somewhere, it is in another lion’s home. Guess how that turns out? There are going to be depredation permits and its not a big deal there are plenty of lions, more than the deer herds can stand at this point. It makes no sense why people get up in arms about lions and bears but eat dead cows and chickens.
Dogula, you are naive. Cougars rarely attack humans and there is absolutely no scientific evidence that a cougar that kills livestock is any increased risk to humans. California has not had sport hunting since 1971, has the largest amount of cougar habitat anywhere in the west and by far the largest human population. When you normalize the amount of people/ square mile of cougar habitat, CA should rank 1st in the west for attacks on humans and depredations, but actually ranks 11th. Killing 4 cougars for a depredation of a few goats is a poor trade. As someone who has studied cougars for 35 years, I would have simply removed the female and let nature take its course the the subadults. They were old enough that there is a descent chance they could have survived. Studies on cougars have documented subadults successfully surviving at 16 months of age. Rick
Rick, you could have stated your facts without attacking me first. But where’s the fun in that?
Well informed as you are, though, I doubt you actually know all the attacks and all the lion kills. Lots of ranchers, large and small, don’t report livestock kills, or what they do about them.
Just sayin’.
I also knew the woman who was killed by the lion in Cool 20-odd years ago.
Dogula, It was not an attack, simply noting your comments are based on bias and perception, not evidence. Rumors from the ranching community are not backed up by evidence. Research has not found that large # of depredations go unreported or are “handled” by the rancher. During my research, of the 30 cats I radio-collared, if I had listened to the ranching community you would have thought none of my cats survived. I did not know the fate of a single animal, a 13 year old female I had collared 4 times during a 11 year period. So as far as I can tell, I had lots of reports of unreported killing, but no evidence of one. All attacks on humans are reported. In CA there have been 13 attacks in the last 26 years. There have been no attacks for 20 of those 26 years and only three attacks resulted in a fatality. Trail in Cool, Cuyamaca State Park and Whiting Ranch Regional Park. Your chance of being attacked by a cougar is on the order of 1 and couple hundred million (based on the # of recreational visitor days spent in cougar country each year). Your chance of being attacked is greater (albeit still very low) in 10 other states and Canadian provinces. So the loss of life in any outdoor endeavor is tragic, but your chance of being attacked by a cougar is very, very small. Rich
So what exactly is your point? That we shouldn’t kill predatory lions? That statistically speaking, because so few people are attacked, we should allow them to feed on our livestock?
Barbara may just be an unhappy statistic to you, but to her husband Pete she was a person. It IS a dangerous world, stuff happens, none of us gets out alive. But I happen to think that human beings are more important than lions, and if a lion is creating a problem, it’s time for the lion to go.
Dogula, Would you advocate death penalties for hunters poaching wildlife?
Dogula, you are less likely to be attacked in CA then in other western states, so hunting cougars does not make you safer People who argue otherwise are relying on bias and perception not on evidence. Researchers at Washington State University have reported that cougar hunting actually increases conflict because the young male portion of the population increases in a hunted population – the segment most associated with conflicts. The approach in CA is to remove the offending individual something that has long been advocated by leading scientists as long ago as the 1971 (The Cain Report). The death of Barbara Schoener was a tragic event, and killing a bunch of cougars prior to her death would have not reduced the chance of a very rare event from occurring. My conclusion is evidence based. We humans like to believe everything can be solved and all risk managed, but they cannot. So my point was and is we should manage by evidence and not perception as you seem to advocate. Rick
” and if a lion is creating a problem, it’s time for the lion to go.”
If if there isn’t really a problem in the first place….
another logical fallacy, the obvious one being the earlier strawman: ‘can’t know exactly everything thus you can not know anything’
” I doubt you actually know all the attacks and all the lion kills.”
Statistics are magic.
Good luck with your evidence over their perception, Rick. As one who yields to experts, I certainly appreciate the input. And I reject the culture of fear.
thing fish, its pretty rare for a lion to stop eating livestock once it starts eating live stock. Thats the problem.
Here is some good info.
http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/MountainLion.asp
I am far more afraid of lightening than I am of lions and my day job is in the woods.
How much livestock can 1 problem cat consume in 1 year?
Control the population based on science not fear, that is what I support.
Interesting that they don’t have a regular breeding season.
“The mountain lion involved apparently killed 112 sheep in the area before it was captured. ”
also
“In Nevada, it was estimated that annual losses of range sheep to mountain lions averaged only 0.29% ”
I am not a wildlife biologist that specializes in predators.
I work in the woods, my fear is a 2 ton widow maker breaking loose while i measure a snag.
Which reminds me, there is an amazing, very large, jeffery pine that has been dead for a long time and is surprisingly well intact. Go up the powerline trail towards the end of the corral loop, and walk. I think you can see it from that junction. It can be seen on the recent google earth high-res images.
Found it.
38.879687,-119.977721
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=38.879687,-119.977721&num=1&t=h&z=18
John, Knight has not actually conducted research on cougars and therefore much of what he concludes is not supported by the extensive amount of research that has been done on this species throughout North America. Whether or not a cougar preys on livestock rarely or often (if not removed) is dependent on quite a number of factors including age and sex of cougar, terrain, livestock type, abundance of prey etc. There are quite a few examples where livestock depredation is a one off circumstance. Rick
Cars are for more Dangerous then Mountain Lions and kill more livestock too , I say
lets kill off those cars as well …
Jon
The killing of four Lions was excessive and stupid !
Rick, first, there is no threat to lion populations right now that is anywhere nearly as important as the loss of winter deer habitat. We are not dealing with black footed ferret or some other endangered animal where killing any one animal has any impact on the species. So people livelihoods do count in this. There are a huge number of factors that go into depredation as you pointed out. But the research I have read indicates that past depredation is fairly predictive of future depredation. So there is no reason to tolerate that. If you want to help a lion, support Rocky Mountain Mule Deer and buy some winter deer habitat for permanent conservation.
“How much livestock can 1 problem cat consume in 1 year?”
If you only have a couple of goats, sheep, llamas on your 5 acres, then, ALL of them. Which could be quite a bit more devastating to that one rancher than the killing of one lion would be to the total population of lions. That .29% stat is on Nevada’s large sheep herds. But still, a sheep costs a couple hundred bucks. Some of us don’t think that’s anything to sneeze at.
By the way,what does your choosing to work in the woods where there are scary dangerous trees have to do with predatory lions in the foothills?
I have lived in the mountains and foothills and been involved in hunting, fishing and camping all of my life. It used to be that you rarely saw a mountain lion because they are a private predator. Now in recent years I have seen several myself and heard of many others. In the last year I have personally seen two at very close quarters. They will kill and eat you in a heart beat, a small child or pet is like a snack to them. They are far too over populated now, they have been protected far too long. They have NO Natural Predators, they are the top of the food chain. Really they are beautiful but unbelievably dangerous, I saw one cross the road in front of me, it was at a run and it was faster than I could ever have imagined, it barely touched down on the road once as it bounced across. This was a full sized highway. They need to be thinned out.
I live in northern ca, up in the mountains, and was almost attacked by a mountain lion at night. Thankfully I screamed for my life when I saw it lunging at me(after i first spotted it stalking me in the brush) and it ran into a flimsy wire fence it could have easily jumped over but I think it got a bit confused because the fence was pretty covered in vines so not very visible. Thankfully I’m alive but pretty freaked out. I saw 2 cubs a few days prior to that incident and another one a few nights later. This was a few months ago and haven’t seen any since.