Following the fatal shooting of two mountain lion cubs in a Half Moon Bay neighborhood last year, Sen. Jerry Hill plans to introduce legislation that would urge state officials to use nonlethal options when responding to similar incidents.
Hill will introduce the legislation at a news conference Friday morning at the CuriOdyssey wildlife museum in San Mateo.
The new law would call for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to partner with wildlife groups when responding to mountain lion sightings, to possibly tranquilize and capture the mountain lions instead of killing them.
Current state regulations don't give the department much flexibility when mountain lions venture into areas populated by humans, according to Hill's office.
Hill’s legislation will authorize the department of fish and wildlife to partner with wildlife groups and nonprofits when responding to such incidents if there is no imminent threat to human life.
The incident involving the two mountain lion cubs sparked debate as to whether mountain lions should be killed when in areas populated by humans.
On Nov. 30, 2012, two sibling mountain lion cubs were spotted in the 800 block of Correas Street in Half Moon Bay near Burleigh Murray Ranch State Park.
The lions, which fish and wildlife officials initially said weighed 25 to 30 pounds, were fatally shot on Dec. 1, 2012, after game wardens and San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies were unable to shoo them out of the neighborhood.
Necropsies showed the female lions were only about four months old, weighed 13 to 14 pounds, and were starving and unlikely to survive in the wild without their mother.
Wildlife groups from around the state have responded to such incidents with calls for change. A petition by animal aid group Wildlife Emergency Services urging the department of fish and wildlife to change its ways has already received more than 1,000 signatures.
Hundreds of mountain lion sightings are reported every year in California. The reports range from simple sightings in the wild to the presence of lions in developed areas.
Officials say attacks on humans are rare. The incident in Half Moon Bay in December, however, marked the second mountain lion shooting by a state game warden in San Mateo County in as many years.
Following the Half Moon Bay incident, wildlife advocates have met with department of fish and wildlife officials to come up with protocols to avert the shootings of mountain lions, which are “specially protected mammals” under Proposition 117, approved by voters in 1990.
The department's rules, however, clearly state, "When evidence shows that a wild animal is an imminent threat to public safety, that wild animal shall be humanely euthanized (shot, killed, dispatched, destroyed, etc.)," according to Hill's office.
The way the guidelines are written, on-the-ground responses treat any situation where a lion "might somehow" come into contact with a human -- no matter how unlikely – as a situation of "imminent threat,” Hill's office reported.
The nonlethal procedures state officials will be required to utilize under Hill’s legislation include capturing, pursuing, anesthetizing, temporarily possessing, temporarily injuring, marking, attaching to or surgically implanting monitoring or recognition devices, providing veterinary care, transporting, hazing, relocating, rehabilitating, and releasing.
The legislation, however, still provides the department with the authority to kill mountain lions if the lion can reasonably be expected to cause immediate death or physical harm to humans.
The legislation also clearly authorizes the department to develop partnerships with veterinarians, scientists, zoos and other individuals and organizations to work with state game wardens when mountain lions wander too close to humans.
And local agencies can help. The Peninsula Humane Society, which rescues and rehabs injured and orphaned native wildlife, saved the lives of 1,450 wild animals last year in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
“The safety of Californians is priority number one, but the law needs to be changed to give wardens more nonlethal options when dealing with the increasing number of mountain lion encounters in our neighborhoods,” Hill said in a statement.
"Californians value mountain lions as the last remaining apex predator in the state; contributing substantially to environmental health. Senator Hill's legislation reflects those values and will help to ensure that mountain lions remain in the wild for future generations to appreciate," said Tim Dunbar, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation.
Even when it was clear the lions were not afraid of humans and attacking pets, many still ignored the obvious warning sign. It took the death of a teenager to realize how serious it was (killed while on a run through a wooded area). The policy now is to threefold in places like Boulder. 1)Discourage deer from being around and immediately removing any carcass (a mountain lion will kill and save it for later); 2) Any mountain lion found in city or town is tranquilized, tagged, and removed. If it returns kill it; 3) Community education on threats they pose and minimizing your chances of attacks on pets or humans. Hill's actions are sort of in the right direction but it really ought to be Fish & Game that sets these rules working with local agencies and rules. You do not need more laws, just common sense polices (like spelled out above). Remember most of all these are predators.
Nope, ....... it wold still be a problem
Since 1909, just 20 people have died as a result of puma attacks anywhere in North America, while there have been more than 60,000 fatal attacks on pumas by humans.. About 62 people die each year from lightning strikes in the US so you're more than 300 times more likely to be killed by lightning than by a cat.
Most people, especially in suburbs, never gave mountain lions much thought. Out in the real wilderness you would expect to see a fair amount of wildlife but not in places like Boulder, Palo Alto, or San Francisco. And most people, I suspect, do not think deeply about them as a threat until it becomes right in your face. That was the case in Colorado and now here as well. The key, as I understand, is making sure the lions learn to stay away from humans. And that behavior is then passed on to cubs. Obviously if they refuse to do that, you have no choice but to kill them. But to answer your question: if you move to a wilderness area, you have to realize that wild creatures abound and take sensible precautions (like people who live up near Lake Tahoe have to with bears roaming about).
The question remains how to make sure that lions stay away from the humans who are building homes on land that they used to prowl. eg Portola Valley and Woodside. I have to disagree with you about killing them. We always have a choice, especially when we're talking about lethal force. It just requires more time to engage in an alternative behavior. Unless a mountain lion or a bear is actively slaughtering people, the people in animal control should use tranquilizer guns to sedate and move them. Maybe then they'll learn to stay away from humans. If you kill the animal that's interacted with the human population, you also kill the opportunity for it to reproduce and pass on that gene expression that contains the desire or instinct to avoid humans to its offspring.
And people have to do their part by discouraging deer from hanging around by planting less tasty things for them to eat and other ways to discourage them. Lions perform one vital service in this regard-they eat deer and will help keep their numbers down. They also eat squirrels too. Although not a mountain lion, one unlucky squirrel at the Lodi Zoo (inside a tiger area) darted up a tree trunk and then waited for the tiger to pass. The tiger just grabbed him and ate him in front of a kid and horrified parent. You can see it on You Tube.
www.change.org/petitions/charlton-bonham-director-department-of-fish-and-game-consider-change-to-mountain-lion-policies