Finding Little Room in Lions’ Den

It would be a shame, park ranger Donna Krucki was telling a group in Laguna Niguel this week, if the only mountain lions we had in Orange County were stuffed and mounted in a museum.

I sat in the audience thinking just the opposite. I never saw a mountain lion I didn’t wish were in another county. Actually, I’ve never seen a mountain lion in the wild. Though Krucki offered tips on what to do if you should confront one of these cougars on a hike, her list failed to include the one idea at the top of mine: Pray.

I went to Krucki’s slide show, however, to get a more educated look at the California mountain lion. When you see things from the mountain lion’s viewpoint--which is pretty much what Krucki presents--it makes you think harder about Orange County’s rush to turn every hill and valley into a sea of condominiums with red tile roofs.

“The cougar population in California is in good shape, except in Orange County,” Krucki said. “There is less and less land here left for these lions for finding their food. They’re on an island surrounded by development.”

Krucki now works out of O’Neill Regional Park, but for years was on staff at Caspers Wilderness Park. She was part of a five-year study at the end of the 1980s in which mountain lions were tracked by biologists who placed radio devices in tags around the cougars’ necks.

It was sad to listen as Krucki described one mountain lion tracked in the study, who wandered as far as Oceanside and then the Laguna Coast in a desperate search for wilderness area that could supply enough food (deer, possums, coyotes)to sustain her.

Krucki told of another lion in the study who suffered a broken leg. She still managed somehow to find enough meat to feed not only herself, but her two cubs.

A mountain lion needs 70 to 100 square miles of wilderness to find enough food to exist, she said. Yet in Orange County, there are less than 700 square miles of wilderness left. Motor vehicles are the major cause of mountain lion deaths, she said. The animals actually risk freeways and major roadways to try to find new wilderness turf for food.

Once home to hundreds of these cougars, Orange County probably has fewer than 50 mountain lions left, mostly female. When you see Krucki’s color slides of these proud, beautiful animals, even people who aren’t particularly fond of them can see why Krucki has chosen to devote so much time to studying their characteristics.

One of her color slides showed a set of young trees still in large containers awaiting planting at a golf course. Krucki lamented that she once saw a red-tailed hawk trying to nest in one of those unplanted trees, so difficult was it for birds to find proper habitat in that area of the county.

The final slide in her show depicted only a set of mountain lion paw tracks. She noted as her audience gazed at the blow-up:

“I hope we will always have the ghost walker in the Santa Ana Mountains.”

Natural Need: Krucki’s presentation was made to members of the Orange County Natural History Assn. at the Sea Country Community Center. It was also my first chance to meet Jackie Hanson, the dynamic leader of the group. She’s been working diligently to keep up funding for its museum at 31781 Camino Capistrano in San Juan Capistrano.

The museum’s fossils and animal bones, dating back millions of years, are a spellbinding sight. But what’s most impressive to me is that Hanson and others who work there all do it for their love of nature. None of them gets paid anything for the effort.

I stopped in on Wednesday when volunteer Suzanne Glasgow was running the museum. She took marvelous care in discussing the fossils and live snakes and toads with school-age children. I also picked up a book for my daughter called “History of the Earth.” It was a steal at $1.

Sad Days: Sometimes a response to a column comes as a real surprise. I wrote a few weeks ago about Juanita Swarts of Fullerton, who has an extraordinary talent for designing and making quilts. She was preparing for a huge quilt show at Irvine Valley College. I discovered quickly that quilts are an immensely interesting subject to a lot of people here.

One of the joys of working on that column last month was meeting Swarts’ husband, Carl. He was out working in their yard but took a few minutes to meet me and tell me how extremely proud he was of his wife’s work.

A quilting friend of Swarts’ called to tell me that Carl Swarts died at the family home Tuesday night. He was 78.

Wrap-Up: It’s been more than 10 years since anyone was attacked by a mountain lion in Orange County. But here are some tips Krucki gives if you’re hiking and you come across that rare mountain lion:

* Do not squat or bend down. Make yourself appear as large as possible--stand tall, with arms raised. “Make that cougar think that you are just too big to eat,” she said.

* Never hike alone. If children are with you, make sure they are never more than an arm’s length away.

* Carry some kind of walking stick with you. Krucki said if she were attacked, she’d go for the eyes or the nose with the stick.

* Never approach the lion. (That might sound crazy anyway, but Krucki says people have done it, especially with cameras.) And never back the lion into a corner where she has no escape.

* Never run. The cougar can outrun you.

* Fight back. Your efforts could be enough to scare the lion off.

Someone asked about pepper spray. Make sure you know what you’re doing, Krucki warned. The only thing worse than fighting a mountain lion is fighting one when you are blinded.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by call-ing the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail tojerry.hicks@latimes.com