County OKs Caspers Park Restrictions : Most of Nature Area to Be Closed to Children Due to Lion Attacks

Rocked by two mountain lion attacks on children in seven months at a southern Orange County wilderness park, the Board of Supervisors Wednesday agreed to “sensible restrictions” that include putting most of the park off limits to children.

The new rules also limit use of camping and nature trail areas at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park to groups of at least two adults.

Children will not be allowed beyond a picnic area near the entrance to the 7,500-acre park located seven miles east of San Juan Capistrano. Adults wanting to go beyond the picnic area will be required to obtain a free wilderness use permit.

The park will be closed until at least Jan. 2 to allow time to implement the new procedures and prepare signs explaining the restrictions to visitors. The restrictions were drawn up by the county’s Environmental Management Agency staff after consultation with state Department of Fish and Game officials and other wildlife experts.

Intensive Study Planned

During the closure, state wildlife biologists and game wardens will conduct an intensive study of the mountain lion population in Caspers Park and adjacent wilderness areas of the Cleveland National Forest and the National Audubon Society’s Starr Ranch Sanctuary.

The study will be launched at daybreak today, according to Terry Mansfield, who directs the Fish and Game Department’s wildlife management division in Sacramento.

Mansfield, at Caspers Park Wednesday afternoon with Warden Randy C. Darnall, said it is “considered imperative,” in light of the attacks on the two children, to gather as much information as possible on cougars in the south county park.

“We’ll be trying to put together information to explain what happened (to the children),” Mansfield said. “If we can find that a given lion could be traced, or connected, to the attacks, we would try to capture it” for studies of possible eccentricities, he explained.

“Mainly, we’ll be trying to establish the lion population density in this area, and if we find it is higher here than in other places in the state, it would be important for the county to take further precautions.”

Mansfield said the study team has nine tracking dogs, a tranquilizer gun and radio telemetry collars, which could be attached to lions that might be captured, so their movements could be traced.

“At this point, we don’t have a solid basis for estimating the cat population here,” Mansfield said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

He said that if the population is found to be exceptionally dense--three or more per 100 square miles is considered “relatively dense”--the question of limited hunting or relocation would arise. But relocation poses its own problems, he added, because any suitable territory already has its quota of lions.

The study will take at least 10 days to two weeks, possibly longer, and will involve up to five biologists, wardens and trackers.

Board of Supervisors Chairman Ralph B. Clark said Wednesday that the “sensible restrictions” imposed on the park by the board provide a balance between “sensible precautions against future animal attacks” and “the public’s interest in continuing to use one of our county’s most beautiful and most natural parks.”

Park Closed After Attack

Justin Mellon, 6, a first-grader from Huntington Beach, was seriously injured when a cougar attacked him along a park trail on Oct. 19. The park was closed immediately after the Sunday morning attack while hunters and two teams of specially trained tracking dogs searched unsuccessfully for the mountain lion responsible. The boy received 100 stitches to close gashes on the head, chest and back and has undergone preventive treatment for rabies.

Last March 23, Laura Michele Small, 5, of El Toro was severely mauled by a cougar in the same general area of the park. After that incident, the park was closed for several weeks and trackers captured and killed a young mountain lion thought responsible for the attack.

The little girl has lost sight in one eye, remains partially paralyzed and has developed other illnesses as a result of treatment for her injuries. Her parents have filed a $28-million lawsuit, accusing the county, the state, the National Audubon Society and others of failing to warn the public of the hazard.

Supervisor Bruce Nestande on Wednesday called the restrictions “a very responsible action” but said he hoped that “this park someday again (will) be reopened to everybody, including children.”

Nestande said the county had created “tremendously large regional wild parks” so families could use them and children could “enjoy the out-of-doors and enjoy the wilderness and begin to get a feel for the wilderness. . . .”

Board members also agreed to the suggestion of Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose district includes the park, to work as quickly as possible to establish camping facilities in the undeveloped portion of the park east of Ortega Highway.

Shortly before the most recent cougar attack, supervisors agreed to pay one-third of a $72,000 census and study of mountain lions and their movements in the area by the Audubon Society, which owns a private wildlife sanctuary north of Caspers Park. That two-year study is separate from the state Fish and Game Department investigation starting today.

The Audubon study will be launched before the end of the year, and supervisors will receive periodic progress reports, according to EMA Director Murray I. Storm.

Hal J. Krizan, head of the county’s Parks and Recreation Department, also said the county will “strengthen our public information program at Caspers and other parks where more knowledge of these wilderness conditions needs to be understood by the public.”

The Environmental Management Agency report said that allowing the hunting of mountain lions “would not necessarily alter the safety situation” at the park.

The killing of cougars was banned by the state Legislature in 1971. The ban expired last year, and Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed efforts to extend the moratorium. The state Fish and Game Commission postponed a decision on permitting the resumption of hunting the large cats last spring.

Action Criticized

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), whose district includes Caspers Park, criticized the supervisors’ action, saying that they should declare “open season” on hunting mountain lions and that he will introduce state legislation for that purpose.

“My feeling is that what they made was a decision between animals and people, and they chose animals,” Ferguson said Wednesday.

Orange County “is one of the most urban areas in America,” he said. For the supervisors “to imagine they’ve got a wilderness area in this county like Yosemite and people going out there to picnic is outrageous.”

Supervisor Riley said that from the time the public began using the wilderness park two decades ago, it was recognized that there would have to be some restrictions on public access “if wildlife were to be conserved and protected.”