Experts say more training for county wildlife veterinarians and
animal control officers is needed
Gilroy – You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. At least that’s how Gilroy police feel after last Sunday’s killing of a young mountain lion that was perched in a tree in the backyard of the densely populated Polk Court.
Twelve minutes after the first airing on the 6pm news of the story, Sgt. Wes Stanford received his first telephone complaint.
About a dozen more were to come from both local and regional residents.
“We sat together Monday in a briefing room and we talked about what happened. After a week, nobody has come up with a different option. I haven’t either,” Stanford said. “Given what I knew at the time, and the resources I had, I made the best decision I could. I still feel bad. I respect life. I respect animals. There was no place for it to go.”
One week later, officials from the Department of Fish and Game support Stanford’s decision to use lethal force.
However, some local experts believe there needs to be more procedures developed by the Department of Fish and Game so that law enforcement officials like Stanford don’t have to make that call.
“We’re not making a big enough effort to preserve and protect some of these animals when they get out of their natural habitat,” said Henry Coletto, a retired South County Fish and Game warden who now educates law enforcement officials about shoot, don’t shoot practices regarding mountain lions. “My opinion is we’re killing too many of these young cats. And it’s not Gilroy Police Department’s fault. It’s fallen onto the Fish and Game.”
Coletto believes there needs to be better responses in place when mountain lion are spotted in residential settings. He supports additional training for local and county wildlife veterinarians and animal control officers.
Public safety first
Attacks on humans are rare – there have been 13 verified attacks on humans by mountain lions in the state since 1890.
However, Gilroy police were concerned there was no safe place for the cougar to run after being tranquilized.
As officers gathered around the tree at 555 Polk Court about 10:45am, Stanford talked on the phone to a warden from the Department of Fish and Game trying to determine how to handle the situation.
Neighborhood residents gathered to watch the big cat as well. Some even videotaped the cougar, failing to listen to officers asking people to stay inside and out of the path of the mountain lion.
Stanford made the decision after talking to a Fish and Game warden driving up from Monterey who left the call up to him. An officer had already scared the cat back up the tree twice to buy time to formulate a different plan.
Considering the location of the animal – in a high density neighborhood about half a mile from a park, a school, the outlets, and backed up against U.S. 101 – police reasoned that there was nowhere for the animal to run to – even if tranquilized.
He directed officers to shoot at the cat while in the tree so that they would not have to shoot at the animal on the ground in the highly populated neighborhood. A total of five shots were fired at the cat, two to scare it, and three to kill it.
Often times the decision of whether or not to shoot a mountain lion is left up to the local law enforcement agency because they are the first on the scene and must judge whether the cat is an imminent threat to public safety. Most of these officers have little experience around mountain lions.
“We need to change that mindset,” Coletto said. “I think we have to come up with some different protocol than we have here. I think each one of these is a learning experience. I don’t think we can continue down the same path we’ve been going down.”
Coletto is organizing a group of experts to try and sit down with Department of Fish and Game officials to formulate additional tactics of preservation for the big cats.
In the past two years, six mountain lions have been killed by law enforcement agents throughout the county, including one in May 2004 in Palo Alto, which caused an uproar among local residents and animal advocates. Morgan Hill animal control personnel killed one that same year.
Tranquilizing animals in urban settings is not always feasible or recommended by Department of Fish and Game officials. Law enforcement officials, whose mission is public safety, may not consider it an option if too many people are around watching. The darts can take anywhere from five to 30 minutes to work.
“We want law enforcement to do what they need to,” Department of Fish and Game spokesperson Steve Martarano said. “We’re so strapped we can’t often get there in time.”
The sex of the Gilroy cat killed was unknown to Fish and Game wardens after it was killed. The body spoiled over the Memorial Day weekend because the labs were closed for the holiday. It was unable to be tested for rabies.
Sightings will increase
As humans continue to encroach upon mountain lion habitats with development, mountain lion sightings will only increase and law enforcement officials will likely face more situations similar to last Sunday’s.
Mountain lions are protected from hunting under Proposition 117, passed by voters in 1990. Police are not supposed to shoot a mountain lion if the animal is not an imminent threat. Special 10-day permits are issued from the Department of Fish and Game to individuals who have their animals attacked. There is no official number for the number of lions found statewide. Estimates run between 4,000 to 7,000 by many experts.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that the population is increasing or decreasing,” Martarano said.
Mountain lions are territorial and each claim hunting grounds about 20 to 100-square-miles. As humans build into their habitats, younger lions are pushed out by older lions to find new grounds that may not exist.
Most mountain lions found in residential or urban areas are young cats recently pushed out by their mothers to find their own hunting territory, experts explained.
“Southern California and the Bay Area are some areas where we really need to think about what we’re doing,” said Dr. Rick Hopkins a conservation biologist who has studied mountain lions for the past 30 years.
He believes that passages from the Santa Cruz, Gavilan Range and Diablo Mountain Range must be preserved so that mountain lions can pass into and out of the habitats to breed and hunt.
The big cats must be able to flow into other ranges in order to reclaim territory after older lions die and breed with varying gene pools, he said.
“We have to come up with a strategy of development that can reduce conflict (between humans and animals.) And I think we can do that.”
