Wildlife

Re “Mountain Lion Slain After Attacking Dog,” Jan. 28: The Department of Fish and Game’s characterization of the mountain lion as a “depredation problem” and the justification for shooting and killing the animal (i.e., “the cat destroyed someone’s property”) beg some questions about the delicate relationship between humans and wildlife in Southern California. Most fundamentally, who is destroying what and how?

A growing human population and the related expansion of housing developments into the region’s foothills have entailed a significant loss of wildlife habitat, at an average rate of 150 acres each day. It is not surprising that displaced wildlife gets depicted as “the problem” and is dispatched accordingly, as in the case of the mountain lion in Arcadia.

The increasing number of encounters between humans and mountain lions and the frequently fatal results are a warning signal to us. If we fail to heed it, we will eventually destroy the region’s remaining foothill wildlife and, with it, so much of what makes this part of California worth living in.

ANDREW L. ROTH

Claremont