Cougar Attacks : Answers Are as Elusive as the Lions

For more than 30 years, Phil Pister, a California Department of Fish and Game biologist, has been packing into the eastern Sierra Nevada wilderness and camping for weeks at a time. It is ideal mountain lion habitat, and scores of the big cats live there.

So how many mountain lions has Pister seen in those 30 years?

None, he said. “I’ve seen their tracks, but I’ve never personally seen a lion.”

That is all Lee Fitzhugh, a mountain lion specialist at UC Davis, would have expected Pister to see of what people considered a shy, wary animal--that is, until recently when something started going wrong.

Seeking Answers

Now Fitzhugh and others in the state are trying to figure out why, seemingly all of a sudden, mountain lions are attacking human beings in California. Two children have been hospitalized in Orange County this year from maulings, giving new force to demands from hunters and ranchers to resume hunting the cats.

Until recently, Fitzhugh said, mountain lions were rarely ever seen. “In all the time I’ve spent in the field--10 to 15 years--I’ve only seen one.” But in 1984, when he started a count of lion tracks, “it seemed like everyone I talked to in the field had seen a lion once or twice,” Fitzhugh said. “I began to be really concerned about what was happening.”

Fitzhugh wasn’t the only one noticing an apparent change in mountain lion behavior. Earlier this year in June Lake, Calif., not far from Pister’s home base of Bishop, a mountain lion came onto the porch of Larry and Carol Hughes’ two-story tract house and dragged off their 6-year-old English setter.

Ignores Rifle Shots

Two days later and about 60 miles away near Big Pine, a lion came into Susan McCrory’s front yard and attacked her dog. When she fired two shots into the air from a hunting rifle to frighten it away, the cat not only ignored them but walked toward her house and killed a goat tied under the porch.

Fitzhugh reported his worries last March 5 at the 12th Vertebrate Pest Conference in San Diego. In his speech, he cited the increase in potentially dangerous “close encounters” with mountain lions in California and the numbers of livestock lost to lions. He predicted the possibility of a tragedy.

“Most of the time the lion will not attack (humans), but the data show that it may happen again in California,” Fitzhugh said, according to a published version of his report.

Eighteen days later, he was proved tragically correct. A mountain lion attacked 5-year-old Laura Small of El Toro in Caspers Wilderness Park east of San Juan Capistrano. Before being driven off, the lion severely mauled her, leaving her partially paralyzed and blind in one eye.

Orange County officials closed the park and hired professional hunters, who killed a lion they said was the one that attacked the girl. But 6 1/2 months later near the same spot, a lion attacked and mauled 6-year-old Justin Mellon of Huntington Beach. Justin’s injuries required 100 stitches; he was released from a hospital two days later.

This time county officials closed the park indefinitely and huddled with wildlife experts to determine how to react. This week at the request of the county, state Fish and Game personnel will begin a major study of lions in the park.

Fitzhugh has another prediction that will do little to cheer them or anyone else. In a recent interview he said that such mountain lion attacks “could occur in other parts of the state” as well.

And, he added, the victims, like those in Orange County, most likely will be small children, because their size, movements and voices trigger the lions’ predatory instincts. To a lion, they act like food.

Clues to Behavior

Gary Bogue, who as curator of the Alexander Lindsay Junior Museum in Walnut Creek, Calif., has raised mountain lions from cubs and studied their behavior, agreed with Fitzhugh’s premise.

The cats, he said, do not perceive children as simply small humans. “They see a kid as a big, fat rabbit. They see them as a prey species. If you go to the zoo with your kids, watch the eyes of the leopards,” Bogue said. “They’re staring at the kids.

“Cats I’ve worked with, if they see a kid, they crouch down and go through all the postures that they’d do if they were looking at prey species. I’ve seen it with wild cats, and I’ve seen it with tame, domesticated cats.”

Fitzhugh says that records of mountain lion attacks on humans confirm this preference for children as prey.

One study found records of 66 mountain lion attacks on humans in the Western Hemisphere since 1750. Twenty-three of the attacks were fatal.

Breakdown Changes

Earlier attacks were almost always on full-grown men, because few women and children were in or near mountain lion habitats during those years, Fitzhugh said.

“But since 1950, the records are about half and half, children to adults. Since there are still many more adults than children in the wilds, that shows a preference for children. And since 1984, all of the attacks I know about have been on children,” Fitzhugh said.

His report singled out Vancouver Island in British Columbia as having an extraordinarily large number of such attacks. Authorities there report 12 lion attacks resulting in death or serious injury since 1900. Two of the attacks occurred last year on children in a park and on a hiking trail.

In 1972, a lion pounced on and killed a boy who tripped and fell to the ground while playing near his home. In 1977, a girl bending over to pick berries was attacked and killed. Both victims were about 12 years old, authorities said. Neither was accompanied by an adult.

Canadian Reaction

Frank Tompa, the British Columbia government’s specialist for carnivore and problem wildlife management, said his government has reacted not only by killing specific lions that have attacked humans or livestock, but also by trying to teach the average citizen “how to behave with wildlife.”

Simply not allowing children or pets “to run around by themselves in areas where there are cougars” is enough to greatly reduce the risk of attack, he said. The presence of children seems to invite occasional attacks, but the presence of adults alongside the children seems to discourage them, Tompa said.

This makes sense, Fitzhugh said, when you consider the behavior patterns of cats.

“There has been a good amount of research on cats in general,” he said, and it shows that recognizing, stalking and attacking prey is innate behavior triggered by specific actions of the prey animal.

Many of these reactions are common to both large and small cats, he said. “I think someone who is a careful observer of the domestic house cat has a pretty good understanding of how a mountain lion would act,” Fitzhugh said. “The research shows the two things that most stimulate predatory behavior are small objects going straight away or small objects going at right angles to the cat--something running away or running crossways, and it seems to be the running movement that is important.

Fatal Movements

“Secondarily, quick movements--something that a prey animal would be doing--trigger the reaction.”

Fitzhugh said that domestic cats “are very much attracted by certain kinds of sounds--rustling and squeaking.” He said it appears that such sounds attract mountain lions as well, although the sounds by themselves do not seem to trigger an actual attack. Mountain lions may be attracted by the high-pitched, excited chatter of children at play, he said.

Presented with the sights and sounds that to a cat mean prey, the house cat and the mountain lion “go through the exact sequence of prey-catching behavior: the crouch, the stalk, right through the whole sequence,” Fitzhugh said. Even kittens who have had no contact with other cats instinctively follow this pattern, he said. Flick a wad of paper past them and they pounce even before they know what it is.

“If any animal of the right size starts running directly away, it is likely to trigger a predatory attack, even if the lion has never had previous experience with that animal,” Fitzhugh said.

‘Basically Cowardly’

On the other hand, Bogue says that mountain lions “are basically cowardly” and, faced with an adult human standing his ground, a lion will retreat. “Screaming and yelling and being aggressive right back is a good way to chase them away,” Bogue said.

“I wouldn’t be concerned encountering a mountain lion in the wild. I’m not concerned at all, and I’ve encountered them. I’ve had some I’ve raised come at me, and shouting and waving your arms backs them off.”

It’s not merely an adult human’s size that intimidates a mountain lion, Fitzhugh said. Research shows that “any cat, even the big cats, show a certain amount of apprehension if something approaches them from above. It doesn’t react well with something that’s excessively tall.”

Also, the mountain lion is wary of prey that doesn’t act according to the rules, and the adult human’s innate, involuntary reaction to being startled probably acts in his favor, Fitzhugh said. The human typically turns toward whatever has startled him, falls into a defensive crouch and utters some cry or sound. This is not what prey is supposed to do, and such actions likely would cause a charging lion to pause and even abort an attack, he said.

Risky Assumptions

Such encounters over the years undoubtedly led to the belief that mountain lions were, in effect, harmless to humans, Fitzhugh said. But that, along with other assumptions about the animal, may turn out to be untrue.

“The idea that lions are afraid of people I think is wrong,” Fitzhugh said. “We can’t say necessarily that they’re afraid. We can’t say that they’re secretive. They don’t necessarily avoid people, and they don’t necessarily run away.

“I’ve talked with some of the people who have done radio-collar studies (in which transmitters attached to mountain lions monitor their whereabouts). They have records of walking within 15 feet of a cat with a collar and not being able to seem him. They walked right by and the lion didn’t move. There are records of lions following people apparently out of curiosity. These were in the wilds where people are not that common.”

Confronting a human, the wilderness mountain lion is forced to react to this animal as prey or something to be avoided, Fitzhugh said. It may take several encounters before his instinct tells him what to do.

New Perception

But at the edge of the human habitat, where people are common, the mountain lion’s curiosity may have been satisfied. “In Orange County, where you’ve got the large human presence, there may have been an actual threshold level crossed where the lions are now perceiving humans as prey,” Fitzhugh said.

This relatively new proximity of mountain lions may be the basic reason for the attacks, Fitzhugh said. Both human and lion populations have grown greatly in California, their previously separate domains now overlapping and making encounters much less rare.

Bogue says he believes reasons for the recent attacks are probably very complicated and will require much study. Analysis so far “has been highly speculative,” he said.

“Some say it’s probably because of more encroachment, and yet a few cats always have been in relatively close contact with people. Suburban residents regularly observe lions, like in the Oakland hills, which are fairly wooded. I have verified sightings there. Why hasn’t there been a problem there?” Bogue said.

Impossible to Count

Just how many lions are located anywhere at any time has been a controversial topic at least since the 1970s. Virtually everyone connected with the issue concedes that it is impossible to actually count the cats.

“They hide and they’re damned good at it,” says Eldridge (Red) Hunt, chief of the California Department of Fish and Game’s wildlife division. “And their home range is so big, they’re never in one place for long.”

All estimates are just guesses based on insufficient data, and all you can do is explain how you made your guess, Hunt said.

Early in the century, one hunter hired by the state to reduce the mountain lion population estimated that there were 600 of the cats in all of California. That estimate was unchanged in 1971 when the state Legislature enacted a moratorium on killing the lions at the behest of conservationists, who said the animal might be facing extinction.

Authorities now believe there were actually more than 2,000 mountain lions in the state at that time and that they now number about 5,000, 15 years after the moratorium began.

Decision Put Off

Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed an extension of the moratorium last year, but the state Fish and Game Commission last spring postponed a decision on permitting a resumption of mountain lion hunting. The commission asked the Fish and Game Department staff to gather more data on the cats’ location, density and population.

Hunt said that no matter when the issue comes up before the commission--it is scheduled for next spring--”at least half of the people in the (hearing) room will say our information is indefensible.” The hunter will always want a mountain lion season, and the animal lovers will always be against it, he said.

He said his staff will have better information on mountain lions next year than they did this year, “but there is never going to be enough information for the people who are against taking mountain lions.”

Spokesmen for hunting organizations say the increase in mountain lions has drastically reduced the number of deer, and they favor sport hunting of lions to adjust the balance between the cats and their favorite prey.

Motives Questioned

A spokeswoman for The Mountain Lion Coalition and the recently formed Mountain Lion Preservation Foundation said that while some lions may have to be killed, her membership is unwaveringly opposed to allowing hunters to kill the animals “for fun.” Hunters only want the number of deer increased so that they, not the lions, get to kill them, she said.

Al Taucher, a retired sporting goods retailer from Long Beach and a member of the state Fish and Game Commission, said the commission wants to make sure the Fish and Game Department “doesn’t go off half-cocked before we know what’s going on.”

He said, however, that if the department’s report next year on mountain lions contains what he thinks it will, the commission probably will vote for controlled hunting of the cats.

And in view of the lion attacks on two children in Orange County, “I think if the vote was taken today, it would go (in favor of resumed hunting). Maybe not 100%, but it would go. What we have out here is an indication of something. I’m sure there are too many cats,” he said.

No Quick Answers

“I don’t think it’s that cut and dried yet,” said Bogue, who describes himself as a “well-known anti-hunting person.”

“I don’t think we have to go out and start blowing away cats. There’s been a push by hunters to put them back on the hunting list for a long time. Unfortunately (the attacks in Orange County), is a very convenient thing to get it done.”

Fitzhugh said that if the lion population is reduced near human habitation, “it probably would reduce the number of incidents. But we would not have changed the fundamental problem: lions becoming accustomed to a lot of people.

“Doing something in Caspers Park is not going to get the job done. It’s just too small an area. These lions are traveling in and out of the park and through the Santa Ana Mountains. If lions were removed from Caspers Park and their territories left vacant, it would only be a little while until other lions move in.

They Come Back

“To reduce the population, you would have to go through the Santa Ana Mountains and Camp Pendleton. And, even then, eventually it would be repopulated--certainly within a year. It can’t be done just once and forgotten about.”

He said that to reduce the mountain lion population, constant pressure against the cats would be necessary. But, he said, the state is “justifiably afraid” of opening up such areas to sport hunting and running the risk of “a bunch of vigilantes going out shooting up the countryside. It would have to be done carefully through permits so you don’t get the wild man out there with his Uzi.”

The irony of the problem, Fitzhugh said, is that it appears that now a person is safer from mountain lion attack in the wilderness than in the parklands of Orange County.

“If anything good comes from this,” he said, “it is that the public comes to realize that wild animals really are wild animals and will act according to their behavioral patterns. And there’s nothing we can do to change those patterns.”