O.C. Removes Park’s Limits on Children

Children will be allowed unlimited use of Caspers Wilderness Park for the first time since a mountain lion mauled a 5-year-old girl there nearly 12 years ago.

In a 3-2 vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved rescinding the remaining restrictions intended to protect youngsters from attacks by mountain lions, also called cougars.

The park, east of Mission Viejo, was closed to minors in February 1992 after Laura Small, who was mauled there by a mountain lion in March 1986, won a lawsuit against the county. In 1995, the park was reopened to children, but with certain limits.

Laura was kneeling beside a creek looking for tadpoles when a cougar grabbed her by the head and dragged her several hundred feet before her mother and a passerby rescued her. The girl suffered head and neck injuries and required plastic surgery.

A few months later, a second child, Justin Mellon, was attacked by a cougar at the park and suffered bite wounds. Both children eventually recovered The Smalls won $2.1 million in their lawsuit against the county in 1991, although the judgment was later reduced to $1.5 million.

Under the restrictions imposed in 1995, people younger than 18 were not allowed on trails except under direct supervision, and adults had to sign a form acknowledging the dangers of the wilderness area.

Recently, the Caspers Wilderness Park Volunteers Assn. and environmental groups asked the county to open the park completely. County Supervisor Thomas W. Wilson, whose district includes Caspers, the largest of the county’s 10 wilderness parks, supported the move.

“All wilderness areas demand visitors’ respect and caution,” he said.

But Supervisors Charles V. Smith and Todd Spitzer voted against dropping the restrictions. Smith said he could not support allowing children to run unsupervised on trails where mountain lion attacks had occurred.

John Sibley, county director of public facilities, said cougars roam all of the county’s wild parks, which cover 30,000 acres. He said there are in fact more confirmed sightings of mountain lions at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, where there are no restrictions on use.

The county will continue posting signs warning of dangers and advising parents to supervise their children.

No warning signs were posted when Laura Small was attacked, although several sightings of mountain lions in the area had been reported.

Susan Small said Tuesday that the issue of supervision was moot in the attack on her daughter. She was standing just a few feet away when the child was seized “in a quarter of a second.”

“The lion came from behind both of us,” she said from her Mission Viejo home. “There’s absolutely nothing I could have done to prevent it. I know that’s hard for people to accept.”

She said the point of the family’s lawsuit was to make sure that park visitors “got the same information” as county officials about mountain lion sightings and other wild animal activity.

Laura, now 16, recently wrote a school paper about the attack and has said “it seems like it happened to a different person,” her mother said. The family has never returned to the park.