Official Keys on Preventive Hunts as Solution to Lion Attack Problem

The state’s top fish and game administrator said Thursday that hunting the mountain lions at an Orange County wilderness park where two children have been mauled is not “out of the question” but that the idea “hasn’t been discussed actively.”

The administrator--Jack C. Parnell, director of the Department of Fish and Game--said that he and his staff are withholding judgment on how to react to the lion attacks until a survey team returns from Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park east of San Juan Capistrano and reports on the size and density of the lion population there.

Parnell’s comments came during Thursday’s meeting of the state Fish and Game Commission after the panel’s president, Brian J. Kahn of Sonoma, asked repeatedly whether a “preventive hunt” was being considered as an option.

If such a hunt is advisable, Kahn suggested, it would have to be conducted before the park reopens, tentatively scheduled for Jan. 2. The county-owned park has been closed since Oct. 19, when the second attack occurred.

The state called a moratorium on mountain lion hunting in 1971 after conservationists expressed fears that the large cats were threatened with extinction in California. During this period, ranchers have been given permission to hunt specific lions that have attacked their livestock.

Since 1971, according to state estimates, the California mountain lion population grew from 2,000 to 5,000. Last year, Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed an extension of the moratorium, but the Fish and Game Commission postponed until next spring a decision on whether to permit limited sport hunting of the cats.

Hunting organizations have lobbied for resumed hunting almost since the beginning of the moratorium, but the recent mountain lion attacks in Orange County have lent their arguments new force. Last month during an interview, Commissioner Albert C. Taucher of Long Beach said that if the commission voted now on the issue, limited mountain lion hunting probably would be approved.

Terry Mansfield of the department’s wildlife management section, responding to Kahn’s questioning Thursday, said hunting and removing all mountain lions in and near the 7,500-acre park were one alternative discussed last month by state and county officials.

County officials instead favored new park regulations, Mansfield said. Use of camping and nature trails will be limited to groups of at least two adults who have received cost-free permits to be there. Children will not be permitted beyond a picnic area near the park entrance. Mansfield called the new regulations “realistic.”

He told the commission that the department’s contingency plan for such attacks has been “responsive” and has “worked very well.”

One Cougar Was Killed

Three mountain lions were trapped in the park after the March 23 attack that left 5-year-old Laura Michele Small of El Toro partially paralyzed and without sight in one eye. One of those cougars was killed and a mother and a cub were sent to a Salt Lake City zoo. Since 6-year-old Justin Mellon of Huntington Beach was mauled by a cat on Oct. 19, two mountain lions have been captured, examined and tagged with radio transmitters, which will allow officials to determine the animals’ movements within the park and surrounding areas.

The lions trapped recently were released after they “behaved as a normal lion,” Mansfield said.

Kahn said that that policy seems to assume that attacks are made only by “abnormal” lions.

“We’re groping for information” on the causes of the attacks, Mansfield told Kahn, saying that at this point, “speculation would not be appropriate.”

Mansfield said that lions acting untypically “would automatically be suspect” as potentially dangerous. He said mountain lions typically avoid or hide from humans and are rarely seen in daylight. Consequently, he said, the department is trying to enhance snapshots of a lion taken by a park visitor to see whether the lion has any distinguishing marks. Coming close enough to adult humans to be photographed is an example of suspect behavior, Mansfield said.

‘That’s Normal’

He said one lion that was captured had killed prey that morning. “Instead of eating out of a trash can, it was hunting, killing its own prey. That’s normal,” and the lion was released, Mansfield said.

Parnell told Kahn that so little is known about the number and density of lions in that region of Orange County that he couldn’t guess how widespread a “preventive hunt” would have to be--”8,000 acres or 40,000 acres.”

“I didn’t define a geographic area,” Kahn replied. “Maybe it’s a bad idea, but is it being looked at?”

“It is among the options,” Parnell said. He promised that state and county officials would confer again after the state survey team finishes its study this weekend.