We live in mountain lion country. Here in the South Valley and elsewhere throughout the American West, these beautiful big cats make their home in the hills near our towns and cities.
I was reminded of this basic fact of nature a couple of weeks ago when I read how Gilroy resident Julia Benitez one Sunday morning spied a mountain lion resting in her backyard tree. She called the police, who soon arrived. After consulting with the state Fish and Game Department, the cops decided to shoot and kill the animal in the interest of public safety.
As unfortunate as this was for the mountain lion, it was the right thing to do. A wild creature like that getting too comfortable around humans might soon hurt or kill someone.
Despite the fact mountain lions live so close, the chances are extremely slim any one individual might be attacked. In the last 100 years, there have been only 13 recorded human deaths in North America from mountain lions.
Here in the South Valley, the last mountain lion attack on a human occurred on July 6, 1909. On that summer day, Miss Isola Kennedy, a well-respected 38-year-old resident of Morgan Hill took five young boys from her Sunday school class to a Coyote Creek picnic near what’s now Anderson Reservoir.
The five boys, ages 8 to 10, decided to cool off after lunch. As they splashed about in the water, a lioness jumped from the creek-side bushes and slashed Earl Wilson, one of the children, with its claws.
Hearing the screams, Kennedy picked up a stick and rushed toward the cat. She shouted at the other boys to run for help. As she went to defend Wilson, the lioness turned and attacked her, sending her to the ground.
The boys reached a nearby survey camp run by the Bay Cities Water Company and told surveyor Jack Conlan about the lion attack. He grabbed his shotgun and raced to the creek to see the animal on top of Kennedy. In self-defense, she desperately jabbed at the animal with her large hat pin.
Conlan fired into the lion’s flank, but the birdshot didn’t stop the creature in its fierce assault. He next tried slamming the lion with the gun butt, but that also had no effect. Desperate at what to do next, the surveyor ran back to his camp to get his rifle and bullets.
In Joyce Hunter’s book, “Under the Shadow of El Toro,” Conlan described his rising fear during the 15 minutes he was away:
“To me, it seemed a very long time before I reached poor Isola. To her, it must have seemed like years. When I returned, Isola was still conscious and struggling. I yelled for her to lie still so that I would not hit her. She did and I shot the lion behind the left shoulder. It threw up its head and I put the rifle barrel into its mouth and fired. The lion reared, then sank its teeth and all four claws into Isola and after a few struggles, died.”
Conlan and his friend Charles Fletcher pried the lion’s teeth and claws out of Kennedy’s flesh, and carried her to Conlan’s cabin. A doctor soon arrived. From the attack, the woman lost one ear, her right eye was exposed to the bone, and her entire left arm was severely damaged.
At first, these injuries were not thought fatal. Unfortunately, the mountain lion had been infected with the deadly rabies virus. Kennedy and the Wilson boy were infected with hydrophobia and suffered for many weeks. Wilson died of lockjaw, and Isola Kennedy finally succumbed on Sept. 10, 1909.
She was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Morgan Hill and her tombstone – set up by the U.S. Loyal Temperance Legionnaires – is inscribed with this simple testament:
“Sacrificed her life battling a lion to save some small boys.”
The Morgan Hill mountain lion attack was the last for many decades in California. Then on April 23, 1994, a 40-year-old woman named Barbara Schoener was out jogging along the American River Canyon trail near Auburn when a 80-pound female mountain lion pounced on her. She fought back, but the lioness killed her.
Naturalists theorize the animal might have seen her as a threat for its 1-month-old cub nearby. Or maybe the lion thought Schoener was “prey” because she was “running away” from the animal.
The mountain lion that entered Julia Benitez’s backyard was a rare event. Unless they spend much time in the wild, most people in the South Valley will probably never have a close encounter with one of these animals.
I’ve seen only two mountain lions in the wild. Several years ago around sunset, I rode my mountain biking along the Coyote Creek trail just north of Morgan Hill when I saw an extremely big cat stroll across the paved trail heading toward the nearby stream for a drink of water.
Instead of fear, I felt awed and surprised by the sight. What impressed me most was the animal’s immense size and its powerful hind legs. “Damn, that’s a big cat,” I thought, as I started peddling faster to get as much room as possible between me and this wild kitty.
My second mountain lion encounter was at Henry Coe State Park. I saw it on the trail ahead of me. When it noticed me, it turned and headed off in the opposite direction, probably more fearful of me than I was of it.
Mountain lions are a natural and necessary part of the South Valley. They keep the local deer population from exploding out of control by killing about one deer per week. Deer meat makes up about 80 percent of their diet, naturalists say.
The cats have lived here a lot longer than human beings. And despite how some people see them as a threat, these magnificent animals have a right to continue making the hills here their home.
