South County : No Signs of Cougar Day After Jogger Spots One

State wildlife officials scouted the brush above Ortega Highway east of San Juan Capistrano on Monday for signs of a mountain lion that charged a jogger, but they found no trace of the cat, state Department of Fish and Game spokesman Pat Moore said.

The department will not try to capture the lion because the incident is considered a sighting, not an attack, Moore said. “There was no injury, no detriment to anyone,” he said.

The incident occurred Sunday morning in a remote part of Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park. Patrols at the park will be increased, said Tony Gimbroni, county parks director.

U.S. Forest Service firefighter Kenneth Jordan reported that the lion charged at him three times while he was jogging on a truck trail near San Juan Hot Springs.

Jordan said he fended off the cougar, which he estimated to weigh about 150 pounds, by waving his arms and yelling at it as loudly as he could. Other firefighters from the San Juan station found Jordan, shaken but uninjured, a few minutes later.

Earlier this year, 5-year-old Laura Michelle Small of El Toro was severely mauled by a mountain lion in Caspers Park, and last month a female lion and her cub were captured in the park after they repeatedly came too close to people.

“I don’t understand why they’re acting this way,” Gimbroni said about the lions, which normally keep their distance from humans. Some wildlife biologists believe mountain lions, also called cougars or pumas, have grown bolder and more numerous since a moratorium on hunting them was imposed in 1972.