Requiem : Children Learn About a Cougar, Mourn Its Passing

Children brought newspaper clippings and a blood-stained twig to Travis Ranch Elementary School in Yorba Linda Thursday, where lessons about cougars were woven into the day’s curriculum.

Excitement, grief and a new awareness of wild feline neighbors were the order of the day, and children buzzed with accounts of Wednesday’s shooting of a mountain lion only a few blocks from the school.

They learned that a puma, a mountain lion and a cougar are all the same. They also learned why the big cat apparently had to be killed and not just tranquilized: Officials said it was because it might have harmed someone in the 15 to 20 minutes before the tranquilizer could take effect. The youngsters said they understood, but all still mourned the wild creature.

“Please save the inasent cougar,” wrote one second-grade student beneath her drawing depicting the animal. Another child’s sketch depicted a decidedly sad stick figure looking at a dead cat.

“They kept talking about it throughout the day. . . . I want to get it out of their system,” explained their teacher, Lyn Twiss, who helped her class figure out that the puma, mountain lion and cougar are all the same animal.

“There was excitement rather than fear, that’s why we have to talk about it,” Twiss said. She warned the children that while wild things might look cute, they can also bite.

The incident that sparked their interest began when an adult cougar was cornered in a front yard in the 20700 block of Via Sonrisa shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday. The animal had evidently strayed into the quiet, 6-year-old residential neighborhood from the nearby Chino Hills area.

Fearing for public safety, police and a state Fish and Game warden fatally shot the 120-pound female as she crouched by a hedge next to the house, authorities said.

Department of Fish and Game spokesman Pat Moore said the stray mountain lion “may have been hungry and was looking for a pet or pet food.”

He said about a dozen cougar sightings in populated areas are reported to the department in Southern California annually.

Concern over mountain lions has mounted in Orange County since a 5-year-old El Toro girl and a 6-year-old Huntington Beach boy were severely mauled in 1986 in separate attacks by the large cats in Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park east of San Juan Capistrano. Since then, mountain lions have been sighted in other neighborhoods and regional parks in the county, prompting tighter restrictions on public access in those parks.

For the Yorba Linda children Thursday there was also the excitement of being part of an important event. Youngsters living in the immediate area brought in newspaper clippings and even a shotgun shell casing to share with classmates.

“One brought in a leaf and a stick with some cougar blood on it,” said the school principal, Earl Pratt.

Pratt said the cougar incident turned up in many fourth-graders’ journal-entry exercises. Second-grade teachers took special advantage of the surge of curiosity to add safety and informational lessons on wildlife to their curriculum Thursday in advance of a field trip to the Los Angeles Zoo next week.

In one second-grade classroom, a boy walked around showing fellow students the dictionary definition of cougar. Others used crayon sketches to depict the cats. Other 8-year-olds created montages of newspaper articles on the death of a cougar.

‘Might Happen Again’

Twiss’ students were asked to draw crayon interpretations of the drama, accompanied by captions.

“I’m a little scared because it might happen again,” said Ryan Lazar, 8, who was walking to school along an intersecting street when the cat was shot.

Donny Ribaudo, the 8-year-old bearer of the blood-stained twig, echoed, “I felt sad (that the cat had to be killed). But I’m scared if there’s going to be more of them.”

“They may be over on those mountains,” said 7-year-old first-grader Michael Chapman, waving at the undeveloped Chino Hills about a quarter-mile away.

Teacher Jeff Jones acknowledged, “There’s concern about them coming back; that’s why we’re discussing it.”

Jones’ second-grade class was having a cause-and-effect session about Wednesday’s incident.

On the board, students had chalked conclusions such as: “Too many houses are taking away (the cougars’) homes, so they come into our neighborhoods.”

There were also cautionary statements, such as: “Cougars can harm children, so I will run and call 911” if a stray cat is spotted.

Still other students wanted to know, as one put it, “whether the father will come to look for the mom, and if there were babies.”