Bill to Lift Ban on Mountain Lion Killing Advances : Legislature: Approved by Assembly panel, the measure would repeal Prop. 117. Critics say its only purpose is to bring back sport hunting.

Grappling with the increasingly familiar California conflict of people and wildlife, an Assembly committee Tuesday approved a bill that seeks to strip away legal protections for predatory, often brazen, and in two instances lethal, populations of mountain lions.

The most contentious feature of the measure would allow--pending a vote of the people and approval by state fish and game officials--the resumption of sport hunting of the big cats as a means of thinning their numbers.

The bill (SB 28) by state Sen. Tim Leslie (R-Carnelian Bay) passed by a vote of 8 to 2 in the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, where similar bills have died in the past when the panel was controlled by Democrats. It faces another committee test before advancing to the Assembly floor and then must return to the Senate for approval of amendments if it is to receive final passage.

In response to the deaths of two women last year, other harrowing encounters and livestock attacks by mountain lions, Leslie’s bill would authorize a measure on the March primary ballot that would repeal Proposition 117, approved by voters in 1990. That law banned the killing of mountain lions except in cases where a cat had attacked or posed a danger to humans or livestock.

Mountain lions and humans have been crossing paths more frequently in recent years as the cats range out of their remote mountain lairs to lower elevations, showing up in back yards and golf courses, while more and more people among California’s growing population have moved to foothill and mountain homes.

While Proposition 117 ruled out sport hunting of mountain lions, Leslie’s bill would selectively allow state fish and game officials to permit hunting or other control measures. In an amendment added Tuesday, sport hunts and other management procedures would be permitted in specified areas of the state, depending on threats posed by mountain lions.

Supporters, including officials of the California Department of Fish and Game, said management techniques could include trapping the cats in foot snares and admitted, under questioning from Assembly Democrats on the committee, that sport hunting would be an option.

Opponents of the bill charge that its only purpose is to bring back sport hunting of the lions, last allowed in California in 1972. They presented evidence from other states and Canada that they said shows that “blasting a lion out of a tree” for sport will do little to halt attacks on humans and livestock.

Mark Palmer, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, testified that the Department of Fish and Game has adequate authority now to destroy dangerous lions. Officials can “remove, shoot, hunt, kill, any mountain lion that they perceive poses an imminent threat to public health and safety,” he said.

The Fish and Game department, said Palmer, “comes before you tainted . . . [engaged in] a deliberate political decision to try to overturn Proposition 117 and get back to sport hunting of mountain lions.”

Department officials and Leslie argued that Proposition 117 permits chasing down dangerous cats too late, only after they have posed an often life-threatening menace to people and livestock. The threats worsen as the cat population expands, they said.

Department analysts say they documented more than 300 incidents last year of mountain lions attacking or threatening livestock or pets, a 50% increase from the year before. The number of attacks on humans in 1994 was lower than 10, they said, two of which resulted in deaths, the first in California in 80 years.

In December, a mountain lion clawed and bit to death Iris Kenna, 56, while she was walking in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, 50 miles east of San Diego. Last April, Barbara Schoener, 40, was attacked and partly devoured by a mountain lion while she was jogging in a state recreation area about 100 miles east of Sacramento.

State fish and game officials estimate California’s mountain lion population at 4,000 to 6,000. Other estimates go as as high 10,000. Leslie said Tuesday the total for the state is “at an all time high.”

Supporters of Leslie’s bill attribute the increase in part to the special protections of Proposition 117. Protection for the lions, Leslie said, is “higher than an endangered species” receives.

Democrats on the Assembly panel lined up against the bill, with the exception of Sal Cannella of Ceres in the Central Valley, who voted for it.

One Republican, Peter Frusetta, a rancher from Tres Pinos, announced during the hearing that “something should be said here in defense of the lions.”

“I know there is a danger to human life, but we have to remember, the lions were here before the Indian or the white man and we’re encroaching in a way as we did with the native Indians here on, if you could say, their territory.”

Frusetta, however, voted for the bill.