Copied from the other thread but: Dept. of Fish and Game guidelines to law enforcement about when to kill these animals as “imminent threats”:

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/publicsafety.html

FWIW, from our neighbors to the north:
During late spring and summer, one to two-year old cougars become independent of their mothers. While attempting to find a home range, these young cougars may roam widely in search of unoccupied territory. This is when cougars are most likely to conflict with humans.

CL:

This is a sickening loss.

All jokes aside, it sure does suck, doesn’t it? I don’t think anyone disagrees.

It doesn’t sound like there was an imminent threat. Was the animal stalking anyone?

The Dept. of Fish and Game draws a distinction between “immanent threat” and “emergency threat”. Actively stalking would, as far as I can tell, comprise an “emergency threat”. In that circumstance: shoot to kill, no questions asked, do what you need to do. Stalking, as the word is usually used, describes the early stages of a full on attack.

An imminent threat is one — my paraphrase — where there is very little realistic chance of rescuing the lion before an “emergency threat” occurs. In this case, the local police (Berkeley’s finest) have to explain the actions they took to the state Dept. of Fish and Game. In this case, Fish and Game looked at it, with their expertise in mountain lion behavior, and said (again, paraphrase): Yeah, sure thing. You had no choice there. Had you called us instead of killing it, we’d have told you to kill it.

It’s not like it is safe for police to shoot firearms in the middle of the night. Bullets can penetrate house walls, and it’s possible unseen persons (during the night) will be in the line of fire.

The first two shots, per the report, were shot-gun blasts. Depending on the exact scene — that spray of little pellets could be done quite safely. The rifle shot that supposedly took it down apparently had a decent marksman pulling the trigger – so the risk was low.

You have to weight all that against the notion that this fence hopping cat jumps a few fences, hides somewhere around the neighborhood, and then does some killin’ or maimin’ of pets or people before it is, after all that, brought down anyway. Per the report — though the animal wasn’t actively attacking at the time of the shooting — the beast was dangerously out of control and BPD gave us the least sad of all the (only possibility) sad endings.

We need to be in the habit of working towards of non-violent solutions in every context.

Which is not or at least ought not be to say that we ought to join in a suicide pact. The odds of any better ending to that lion story — if the reports are at all accurate — are pretty darn close to 0.

As our hills friends with gardens tell us, the deer are overflowing Tilden Park. Now we know that all those deer are attracting mountain lions:

“Foy also confirmed a speculation made by a number of commenters on Berkeleyside. ‘The best way to find a mountain lion is to find its favorite source of food, which is deer,’ he said. The Berkeley hills have a very healthy deer population.”

Solution: establish a limited bow-and-arrow deer hunting season in Tilden and neighboring EB parks. Benefits: fewer mountain lions in the city; reduced landscaping costs; new source for local, sustainable, organic lean meat; revival of archery, a nice quiet activity practiced by some indigenous people.

CG,

Not attacking anyone = dangerously out of control? It seems like “dangerously out of control’ is code for “in North Berkeley”.

Everything goes better with a little gratuitous class warfare, eh?

“Dangerously out of control” in this case refers to a powerful predator, quite far from any egress back to the wild, wandering through a densely populated urban area, evading police and very likely hunting.

It is “out of control” because short of killing it, nothing is going to prevent the very high probability of close encounters between the lion and people, and the lion and pets or farm animals. It’s dangerous because if the animal gets hungry enough or if it feels threatened enough, it will reliably attack. Thus, “dangerously out of control”.

You may think that we should be pacifists in such a case, unless the lion actually does start to attack. Or keep taking dart shots until we knock it out. Where I come from, we would say of that attitude that it lacks respect for the animal because it projects human attitudes or ethos on to the beast, and because it fails to take seriously the speed, power, cunning, teeth and claws of the beast. It also lacks respect if we reasonably believe that it was very likely we’d wind up having to kill it anyway: you’d probably have wound up torturing it for a few hours chasing it around an increasingly frightening and busy city only to, in the end, wind up having to kill it anyway.

Mr. Lord, you’ve said just about everything I was about to type.

Yes, it’s regrettable that the animal had to die but BPD did the right thing (I wonder what people would be saying if the lion had mauled/killed someone…and don’t even wanna think about the city’s liability would have been in that situation).

the follow up does not make me feel any better about losing such a majestic animal
I am still not quite sure why this was considered a threat at 3:00 am even in downtown Berkeley
I understand the BPD concerns but it does not sound like they took enough time to consult with someone who would be more appropriate to make the decision of killing the animal
This has increasingly become an issue since we are closing more and more into these animals’ territory
I think this should really make us pause and think of what we should do to prepare for future similar events

@doggurl: Cougars have killed people’s pets in CA and elsewhere (even going as far as entering houses and killing pets). They have mauled and killed people here in CA. While most of us are tucked up in bed at 3 am, not everyone is (swing shift people for example). I’ve certainly been up and out at that hour before leaving for work trips. Having an animal like this in an inhabited area is dangerous for all concerned.

I don’t know that there is a great solution to this situation, but I can understand why the BPD did what it did.

Diane,

I read the paper and listen to the news
I know mountains lions have mauled and killed people before and I do understand the situation in which the BPD people found themselves when they were called about a lion being right in the middle of a neighborhood
I just feel that, since these animals have been often sighted (whether correctly or not) in the East Bay hills by hikers etc, the local police department should have in place a better system to respond to an emergency like this rather than just a shoot and kill response

“Do not run; instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms; throw rocks or other objects. Pick up small children.”

And do what with the small children? Throw them at the cat?

I think too many of you have spent too much time smoking dope and not enough at the range.

Sounds like a Wild Wild West Show put on by Berkeley Police over a frightened female mountian lion. At 3 a.m., dart(s) could have been used for sure. Why isn’t the police dept. equipped with dart guns
because of the wildlife nearby in the Oakland Hills? It’s time to get updated and caught up to the times. This was a tragedy that did not have to happen. Surely, it was disgusting for the residents to watch and a dangerous activity in a residential neighborhood. Tranquilizing the animal would have been a better solution all the way around…