Mountain Lion Makes Brief Visit to Hillside Homes

Shawn Schmidt woke up, slapped off his alarm clock and gazed out the sliding glass doors Wednesday morning at what he first thought was a cat straddling his backyard wooden fence.

“That’s a pretty big cat,” Schmidt remembers thinking.

Once he saw the long tail, he realized this was no ordinary house pet, but rather a mountain lion. He ran into the next room to tell his housemate, who called police immediately, concerned that students on their way to school might run into the animal.

The lion eluded police and disappeared without harming residents or pets, but the sighting on the 2500 block of Hall Canyon Road has made some homeowners in the quiet residential neighborhood more cautious.

The big cat was spotted at the base of the hillside, barely a block from Ventura High School’s football field. Several months earlier, Schmidt’s housemate, Mark Schubert, had encountered a mountain lion on the same street during a morning walk, but was unharmed.

For a mountain lion to have made its way down to their backyard, it would have had to climb over fences and padded through yards for three blocks or walked down residential streets.

State Department of Fish and Game officials said many mountain lions dwell in Ventura County’s hills, drawn by deer. The agency has had no reports of mountain lion attacks in Ventura in recent years, but officials say sightings in hillside neighborhoods are frequent and that residents on the northern edge of town should keep close tabs on their children and pets.

Schmidt spotted the mountain lion about 8:20 a.m. and watched briefly as the animal leaped from his fence and straddled the neighbor’s tree, north of his home.

By the time he had told his housemate, the mountain lion had disappeared. But the men said they heard dogs barking loudly two or three houses away.

Several hours earlier, a neighbor had heard strange noises in the backyard.

“I was washing my face and brushing my teeth when I heard a loud, deep growl coming from the backyard,” said Craig Reed. “I didn’t think much of it, I just thought it was Buddy, the neighbor’s cat.”

Reed didn’t realize that a mountain lion had been in the neighborhood until police arrived. Several officers walked near the blocks where the lion was spotted and another officer patrolled by car, but no mountain lions were found, said Ventura Police Sgt. Larry White.

Larry Sitton, senior wildlife biologist for the Fish and Game Department, said the threat of a mountain lion injuring people is “infinitesimally small” but residents and hikers in the hillsides should take precautions.

“A mountain lion is a big predator and an opportunistic feeder,” Sitton said. “It will take whatever it can and humans are part of that equation.”

People approached by a mountain lion, should yell to scare the animal and wave their arms to make themselves look bigger, wildlife officials recommend. In addition, officials stress that people should not try to run from a mountain lion, because it will chase them as prey.

Residents along Hall Canyon Road said they were surprised that a mountain lion had been spotted, but added that it’s not unexpected in the hillside neighborhood populated by deer, skunks, coyotes and foxes.

“They were here first,” said Diane Nolan, who lives on Hall Canyon Road. “We just need to let them be there and take precautions. We’ve got neighbors with four legs. Sometimes I trust them more than those with two legs.”