Bold Cougar Roams West Hills Street

Claire Buhn was handing out fliers warning about the mountain lion prowling her neighborhood when she did a double take.

There it was, plain as day, loping down the sidewalk past suburban lawns and minivans, a tawny, lanky cat about the size of a golden retriever.

“I was speechless,” said Buhn, the Neighborhood Watch co-captain. “I said, ‘Huh?’ I couldn’t believe it.”

That sighting at about 4 p.m. Monday was the most recent of eight to 10 reports in a week of a cougar in the 23500 block of Community Street. But wildlife officials, who were hunting Tuesday for the animal they have dubbed “Lucky,” fear there may be more.

Sightings of cougars--also known as mountain lions or pumas--have become increasingly common in the San Fernando Valley in recent years, the fault of growing human and cougar populations and shrinking habitats.

But the West Hills cougar is behaving strangely. Although cougars are usually shy, far-ranging nocturnal hunters, this cat has been appearing during daylight hours and showing up repeatedly in the same area. In one instance, it approached a person.

That means the animal could pose a danger to the public and probably will have to be killed, said Patrick Moore, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game.

“We have an animal that is bold and is threatening members of the public,” Moore said. “That leaves its future doubtful.”

West Hills is just one of a number of areas in the Valley where cougars have been sighted in recent years. Another cougar, probably a different one, was seen in Granada Hills on Nov. 7.

The Community Street neighborhood backs up to the former Chatsworth Reservoir, a 1,200-acre area, now mostly dry, that is populated by the sort of small game that attracts hungry cougars from the nearby Santa Susana Mountains and brings them into contact with civilization.

Still, residents were saddened Tuesday at the idea of killing the animal, even though it has forced them to change their ways in recent days. Lynore Laba no longer takes her evening walks. Barbara Kalbus won’t let her young son play outside unsupervised. And Marvin Kronowitz doesn’t let the poodle out after dark.

But nobody interviewed Tuesday, not even the woman approached by the cougar, said they wanted the animal put to death.

Rebecca Onesto was stepping out of her Toyota Camry on Friday evening to get the groceries out of the trunk when she saw the cougar standing just feet away. She jumped back into the car, but the cougar came up to the door before walking away, she said. Though still shaken, Onesto said she wanted authorities to relocate the animal.

“I just wish it would be transported somewhere,” Onesto said Tuesday after her umpteenth media interview.

Even that step, though, would probably result in the cougar’s early death. Wildlife officials say that overpopulated cougar habitats force them to kill most cougars captured in suburban areas, even those that pose no immediate danger to humans.

The trouble is that the cougar population has grown enormously since a 1972 law that outlawed hunting the animal. That year, a census recorded about 2,400 animals in the state. In 1989, the last year for which a record is available, there were an estimated 6,000 cougars and the population was growing.

Now, the state’s cougar habitat is saturated, wildlife authorities believe. So relocating a cougar would simply put it onto the turf of another cougar, which would attack the interloper. Such contests are almost certain to end in death, starvation or force one animal back to populated territory to resume the cycle. Given the grim options, wildlife officials say, they almost always humanely end a captured cougar’s life--out of the eyesight of a squeamish public.

Gloria Anderson is another resident who would seem to have plenty of reason to resent the cougar. On Friday, her 12-year-old cat Floyd disappeared. She later found his collar and a paw in bushes near her home. The cat may have been the victim of coyotes. But Anderson believes it fell prey to the cougar.

Still, she bears the animal no ill will.

“It’s not the animal’s fault,” she said. “They were here before us.”