CALIFORNIA ALBUM : Living in Cougar Country : Mountain lion attacks and sightings near the town of Descanso have the locals nervous and tourists heading elsewhere. Some say nothing can be done.

Now that their community has become the cougar capital of California, the residents of this tiny mountain hamlet--not usually given to philosophical musings--are discussing the proper relationship between man and beast.

The fatal attack on a hiker by a cougar at nearby Cuyamaca Rancho State Park on Dec. 10 caught few by surprise in Descanso, where the 1,500 residents have learned to mix fear with respect when they regard the magnificent, heavily muscled predator, also known as a mountain lion, puma or panther.

“Mountain lions kill, that’s all they’re designed by nature to do,” said John Elliott, who runs a general store, a video rental business and a real estate firm. “The park invites people up to look at the animals like it’s a zoo, but it’s a zoo without bars.”

Elliott, 38, said he has been awakened many a night to the sound of the mountain lions growling in the moonlight. He carries a pistol when he goes into the woods.

Bob Merigan, 45, who owns a cattle and horse ranch, puts it bluntly: “We have a saying in Descanso: ‘When you enter the park, you enter the food chain, and you better know the risks.’ ”

Nestled in a small valley of trees and rolling hills in the Cuyamaca Mountains, Descanso is the closest human encampment to the sprawling 26,000-acre park and serves as its southern gateway. Only a surveyor could tell you where Descanso ends and the park begins.

With its smattering of stores and its single intersection, Descanso is less a town than a way of life: rustic, unhurried, unburdened by graffiti and noise, with plenty of open space to ride horses and breathe the mountain air at an elevation of 3,500 feet. The biggest business is the hay and feed store.

To its residents--ranchers, blue-collar families, retirees, aging hippies, and high-income professionals willing to make the 80-mile round-trip daily on Interstate 8 to San Diego--Descanso is nothing short of bliss.

Into this Brigadoonish place--where a three-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot home on a third of an acre costs around $175,000--has come the mountain lion. It is a menace that can grow to 8 feet in length from nose to tail and to a weight of 150 pounds.

“In any civilization, killers aren’t allowed to run loose,” said Earl Hammond, 57, who, with his wife, Liz, runs Holidays on Horseback, taking tourists on rides from their Descanso home along the high-ridge trails of the park. “That’s what we have now: killer-animals running loose.”

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There have been other cougar sightings and cougar attacks in California as the animal’s population has soared. A couple in Mendocino County were attacked, a boy was attacked in Santa Barbara County, and a woman was killed north of Sacramento.

But in terms of numbers, the Cuyamaca cougars have been the most aggressive and unpredictable, for reasons no one can explain. Since mid-1993, six cougars have been killed, with official authorization, in or near the park after being deemed dangerous.

The mauling death of Iris Kenna earlier this month prompted the state Department of Fish and Game to term the Cuyamaca area the state’s “hot spot” for cougars.

Gary Abbamonte, 40, owner of the Descanso Junction Restaurant on California 79, has seen business drop by half in the last week. He thinks things will only get worse for him and the other businesses in Descanso--the three general stores, two video outlets, and the delicatessen--if the hikers, campers and picnickers stay away.

He has turned to a radio talk-show host in San Diego for help. If that fails, he’s pondering a lawsuit against the state.

“I’m concerned for the safety of my family and my neighbors and I’m also looking out for my livelihood,” he said.

News of the deadly attack on Kenna, a 58-year-old high school counselor, has filled San Diego television stations. But residents of Descanso (which in Spanish translates roughly to “place of rest”) have probably not seen it.

Television is available only by satellite, and the small satellite dishes rented by a San Diego cable company provide only stations from Denver.

Descanso residents are used to surviving without many conveniences. There are no sewers; septic tanks are the rule. There is electricity, but no gas; propane tanks nuzzle beside most houses. There are no sidewalks, street-lights or stop signs. Water is from wells.

Except for the businesses of Abbamonte and Elliott, most of populated Descanso is set several miles west of California 79 and does not hear or see the year-round stream of cars to the park.

“This is the last example of Main Street America, a real community, centered around church and school,” said Abbamonte, a former New Yorker.

Until recently, the Descanso library, built in 1914, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest in America at 198 square feet.

There is a movement to build a bigger library. A fund-raiser was held at the Merigan barn that featured a showing of “The Man Trailer,” a 1934 cowboy movie starring Buck Jones.

For several years the biggest local controversy was the fact the Descanso Hotel had been turned into a drug rehabilitation center. The center flopped, however, and the talk around Perkins Store (established 1875) is that the boarded-up hotel may become a bed-and-breakfast for flatlanders looking for a romantic weekend.

The hotel was built in 1895 to accommodate stagecoach passengers who wanted to rest before continuing their journey. Local legend says Descanso cowboys used to ride their horses into the hotel bar and loudly demand shots of whiskey.

The highlight of the Christmas season is the potluck dinner at the Community Hall, complete with a reading of “Twas The Night Before Christmas” and the arrival of Santa Claus. Residents are hoping temperatures drop enough for the annual dusting of winter snow.

What do people like about living in Descanso?

“Everything,” said Ruth D’Spain, 66, a member of a local planning board that has successfully fought to keep the town from being carved up into ranchettes and second homes. In the summer, when water is scarce, mountain lions venture out at dusk to drink from the horse troughs at the home of D’Spain’s daughter.

“They’re delightful to watch,” D’Spain said. “But you learn not to go out and run around and call attention to yourself when the lions are around.”

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Just what can be done about the cougars, and the worries of Descanso, is unclear.

A ballot measure passed by voters statewide not only outlaws the hunting of mountain lions, but prohibits Fish and Game from relocating them, thinning down their numbers or otherwise managing them.

State Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Roseville) has introduced a bill aimed at loosening the reins on Fish and Game. The bill would put a measure on the 1996 ballot. The Mountain Lion Foundation is opposed.

“The mountain lion has more protection than any animal, endangered or threatened, in California,” grumbled a Leslie aide.

Ranchers around Descanso, it is said, have been known--despite the threat of a stiff fine--to not wait to get state permission before killing cougars that are menacing livestock. “It’s not hard to bury a dead cougar,” said one resident.

No one knows for sure how many mountain lions live in the park and its environs. For that and other reasons, Descanso residents are being careful.

Elliott is carrying his .38 (and selling beware-of-the-cougar T-shirts). Liz Hammond, who says her riding groups have encountered mountain lions on 18 occasions, no longer rides alone.

“The mountain lion was here before people came to Descanso and he’ll be here after we leave,” said Bert Finan, 34, a house painter. “We’re living in the mountain lion’s home,” said his cousin Tom Finan, 39, also a house painter.

A few days after the mauling of Iris Kenna, an anonymous full-page letter was posted on the bulletin board outside Perkins Store, beside notes hawking potbellied pigs, car parts, horseshoeing services and fence repair expertise.

The letter began by noting that Kenna, an avid bird-watcher and hiker, apparently tried to run away from the cougar, which is at the top of the list of things you are not supposed to do:

“The recent tragedy in the State Park is a perfect example of what happens when you break the laws of nature . . . . These laws of nature are not unlike the rules of the street in any big city. There are certain things that are just not done.”