Police

In memoriam: Berkeley’s mountain lion

September 3, 2010 6:09 am by Lance Knobel

A memorial set up for the mountain lion shot by the BPD on Tuesday. Photo: John Bennett.

Some Berkeleyans, saddened by the mountain lion shot by police early Tuesday morning, have established an informal memorial to the animal at Shattuck and Cedar.

As Berkeleyside has reported previously, wildlife experts say that the Berkeley police had little choice but to shoot the animal. Tranquillizers are not readily available, even for Fish and Game patrols, and a tranquillized animal can become an even greater danger.

An open letter from Zara McDonald, executive director of the Felidae Conservation Fund, an organization dedicated to “excellence in wild cat research, education, and conservation” also supported the police response:

The police on the scene Tuesday morning responded as well as one could expect. This is such an abnormal event, that any response must be to ensure the safety of the community. There were many variables to consider in the difficult situation that required immediate action, calling upon the judgement of the officers at the scene. California’s Department of Fish and Game has recently completed a video specifically to help guide law enforcement agencies facing such situations, and is in the process of distributing it to agencies throughout the state.

Berkeleyside has contacted Fish and Game about the planned necroscopy of the shot mountain lion. According to warden Patrick Foy, the necroscopy will most likely be held when there are a number of animals for examination.


15 Comments

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  • Janet Byron

    I agree – I can’t see that the police had any choice. It’s thrilling the mountain lions are here, but they are dangerous carnivores. What were the police going to do, chase it 2 miles up the hill back into it’s habitat?

  • Jonna Peterson

    Yes. They should have facilitated its escape into its habitat. The Mountain Lion Foundation in Sacramento (www.mountainlion.org) has training programs for law enforcement agencies, and they have offered them in the Bay Area. Agencies close to lion habitat should attend.

  • http://basiscraft.com Thomas Lord

    Jonna, how do you know that mountainlion.org wouldn’t train BPD to kill the animal in such circumstances (or else not address such circumstances at all)? (My guess is that they would agree with the killing in this case.)

  • laura menard

    Folks, the Chron and the Express stories reported officers first tried to direct the puma back up towards the hills, that failed and the puma began jumping backyard fences.

  • zelma forbes

    I think they reacted too quicly to shoot the cat. People could have stayed inside until the matter was resolved. Maybe they should have tried some catnip. He was not given a chance to run. We have invaded the cats home.

  • Mike Farrell

    What do people think the cat was doing there in the first place?
    Lost? Chasing a deer “down from the hills?”
    Hunting.
    Well the deer in that neighborhood are resident; they eat, sleep, make babies, raise babies right there.
    The deer have expanded their range. Why does no one seem to think the cats won’t do the same?
    My neighborhood should not be mountain lion territory.
    Cats that are willing to venture into dense urban neighborhoods should be removed from the population.

  • carolyn

    Can you imagine the ‘memorial’ that would have been erected if the cat had made lunch of someone’s beloved dog! Or four year old!

  • http://berk94708.blogspot.com John Parman

    If you don’t want mountain lions in the lower hills, then cull the deer.

  • Jennifer and Benjamin Pearson

    At our home with a large verdant garden with a historic ‘lost creek’ beneath, we have coexisted with wild animals for nigh onto 40 years in the North Shattuck neighborhood-habitat where the cougar was sighted and slaughtered.

    The sighting does not surprise us and we expect future signs of their presence. We know cougars and bobcats and skunks and possums and raccoons and owls and bats and many huge rats travel through our gardens so we bring our pets inside by dark.

    If out walking, we carry a flashlight and watch out and listen to the night sounds. As children, we were taught that if dogs are barking, they are alarming us to something amiss. We listen and watch. Just as we go outside to cool off on heat wave evenings, wild animals move about to seek the cool of verdant foliage and water.

    A report: two months ago, a neighbor on Lincoln Street living on the bottom floor down a dark driveway near Milvia found some mountain lion pooh by her door. Her husband who is an experienced hiker recognized it as cougar scat. He asked the building manager to install a security camera; the manager refused. (An alternative would be motion-activated lights.)

    Deer and other wildlife can smell the ancient creek routes which still flow, underground and travel along those watershed basins as did their ancestors. People know of many signs of cougars and bobcats with a few stories of eye witness sightings of wildcats westward down Lincoln, Cedar, Vine and Rose Streets–all ancient creek routes where groundwater flows downstream to the San Francisco Bay.

    Deer are common throughout Berkeley. Deer have been sighted as far westward as Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina. There is one well-known older buck with majestic antlers who is often seen following Codornices Creek–crossing Henry Street and grazing on the shrubs at the Magdelene Church with does and young. He has been sighted countless times all the way downstream to the Albany Target Store by the I 80 Freeway. We have seen his family searching for tender foliage along Milvia Street from Berryman all the way to Ohlone Park and beyond. A colleague has a deer family living in her garden near Hopkins St. People living in the hills have many stories of diverse wildlife species including finding signs of the presence of the larger wildcats.

    Friends living on Panoramic Hill know how to coexist with mountain lions and diverse wildlife. For years, signs are posted to caution dog walkers, hikers and joggers that inform “Mountain Lion Sightings” by the Jordan Fire Trail of Strawberry Canyon. Thus, we would be wise to learn more on the habitat we share with other life forms and teach our neighbors and children.

  • cary mcdonald

    I have been a walking the Tilden Park area east of Berkeley since 1975. A female mountain lion was happily active in the area in the 1980′s, but she was not mating. She was beginning to impact the dear population, and deer signs, and sightings were becoming less apparent at that time. Prior to that, a small heard would gather on the eastern slopes of Strawberry Canyon, just south of the Nature Area, Farm. Since then, deer have increasingly moved to urban fringe areas.
    A little less than 2 years ago, near the parking area at “Lone Oak” picnic site two cubs were playing in the road way in the early AM, and I advised the other observers to depart with haste.
    Since then, I have seen headless deer carcasses about once per month, with tell-tale Vultures sometimes flagging the area.
    I suspect the recently shot Cougar to be one of the pair that was playing at the parking lot at Lone Oak, two years ago.
    I have also seen a large, darkly colored Cougar around midnight, in the area of ‘Ozal Martinez’ ravine/valley area four years ago. He/she had been surviving on deer and sheep in the area.
    I tell hikers to be wary, that Cougars are generally nocturnal (read: midnight, and just before sun rise), but will may adjust according to availability of food (deer, feral dogs, cats, etc.), and that an attack scenario, even by a small female Cougar would typically occur by leaping down from a tree branch, and easily biting through the (human) skull of their victim, as occurred in Southern California on a hiking trail. They generally do not attack pairs of hikers, or hikers with a dog. I also tell them that Cougars, previous to California’s voter decision to declare them ‘endangered’ were in fact in good management by Fish and Game; and all’s the ruling did was make it so public paid ‘hunters’ needed to take over AFTER ‘incidents’ occurred, rather than having (high) paying hunters keep the populations in check within the guidance of Fish and Game. While promoters of the ‘protected’ category claim that ‘all is working pretty well’, try expressing that to the injured and families of the dead: 13 attacks and six deaths since the legislation, and no attacks for twenty years prior.

  • http://mdk10outside.blogspot.com Mike Caton

    If the lion had mauled a sleeping homeless person, where would the political priorities lie?

    I’m all for doing things to preserve lion and lion habitat in ways that keep them from interacting with humasn in dangerous ways, and I wish there wasn’t a situation where we had to choose between human safety and animal life. But as long as humans are going to coexist with predators – which I hope is a long time – situations like this will crop up, and there will be hard decisions to make.

  • Marc

    The ban on hunting mountain lions was an emotional response, not based on science.

    Since the hunting of these cats ended, we have seen more incidents with humans, and increased problems with livestock.

    As Cary McDonald said, how about letting hunters pay to hunt the animals, instead of paying professional hunters to kill them? Hunting of the animals will likely push them into more remote areas, as well as making them more fearful of humans.

    End the hunting ban, and allow hunting with reasonable restrictions….

  • Tim C.

    The memorial at Shattuck and Cedar
    With a sweet religious tone, to this reader
    Makes me wonder anew
    What would Jesus do
    Find a fish and some bread, and just feed her?

  • http://www.felidaefund.org Ally – Felidae Conservation Fund

    Announcement of East Bay Mountain Lion Community Meetings:

    Wednesday, September 15, 7:30pm at Live Oak Park in North Berkeley — Recreation Center, Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley

    Wednesday, October 6, 7:00pm at the Oakland Zoo — Marian Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland

    Felidae Conservation Fund will be holding two public community meetings to discuss the Mountain Lion Incident on August 31 in North Berkeley.

    Zara McDonald, Executive Director of Felidae, will talk about mountain lions in the Bay Area and provide perspective on the growing concerns about public safety. She will also discuss the research and educational work currently underway in the Bay Area Puma Project, the first major study of pumas in the Bay Area.

    Additional participating organizations for the North Berkeley event include LOCCNA, Oakland Zoo, ‘Close to Home’ Lecture Series, and other supporting organizations.

    These meetings will also offer the opportunity for community members to share thoughts and concerns regarding mountain lions and this incident.

    If you have questions, please email info@felidaefund.org.

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