Mountain Lions and Us

It was very early, and I was in the mountains with my mother. The crack of dawn was apparently the best time for hiking, so there we were, while all the rest of the sane people in our area were sleeping. I shuffled behind my mother and tried to will my eyes to open to their full extent.

If I was going to be awake, I wanted to appreciate my time. I urged myself to take in my surroundings. Appreciate the dry, raw beauty of my southern California home. When all of a sudden, high up on the hillside to my left, my eyes encountered a stranger they’d never seen before: a mountain lion. She was large and beautiful, and staring at me with such intense and focused eyes.

I stared back, reveling in the animal's graceful power. Then reason returned to me, and I realized that having a stare-down with a mountain lion might not be the best idea. So I looked away and kept walking, in an effort to tell the mountain lion that I meant it no harm. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom, but I remembered to walk rather than run. That morning was not a morning for being chased down by a large predator. I walked toward my mother, and as I did, I saw the mountain lion walk away too- further up the mountain.

It was an incredible experience. I’d made eye contact with a mountain lion in the wild, and both the mountain lion and I consciously chose not to disturb each other.  

My experience is rare. Mountain lions try to avoid humans, and prefer their natural habitat over the noisy areas people are often found in-so mountain lion and man are unlikely to come into contact. But as mountain lion habitat becomes fragmented, the occurrence of man-mountain lion interactions will become more common. Mountain lions will travel long distances to find their own territory or a mate, and when habitats are fragmented, it becomes more likely for them to find themselves in urban areas. Perhaps that is what my mountain lion acquaintance was doing when she found me. Whatever she was doing, she should probably serve as a reminder that we share our home with powerful wildlife.

Should this scare us? Perhaps. But if it does, it should probably scare us more for mountain lions than for ourselves. It’s true-mountain lions can be harmful to humans. They’ve eaten pets and livestock in the past, and on extremely rare occasions, have attacked humans. But much like with bears, our interactions with mountain lions are much more likely to result in the death of the mountain lion than the death of a human. In fact, we are so deadly to mountain lions that cougars ('cougar' is a different name for a mountain lion) are more likely to die from being shot or ran over than they are to die by natural causes.

So what can we do to avoid conflict? Some may think removing a mountain lion seen near an urban area should do the trick. Unfortunately, Fish & Wildlife cannot just relocate a mountain lion that has wandered too far into a human-habited area. Mountain lions are territorial animals, and relocating one may cause the moved mountain lion to come into conflict with mountain lions in the relocation destination or simply result in the mountain lion returning back to the area he was moved from.  

And killing a curious mountain lion often doesn’t prevent conflict either. Killing one mountain lion can actually increase the frequency of mountain lion-man conflicts. This is because removing one mountain lion from an area leaves the area open for another, younger, mountain lion to claim as its territory. The younger mountain lion is often less experienced with avoiding humans than the removed mountain lion, and more likely to find itself in an urban area an older mountain lion would’ve known to avoid.

It turns out that the best way to deal with man-mountain lion conflict is to avoid conflict all together. There are some relatively easy steps people can take to avoid conflict with mountain lions:

1.     Keep pets and pet food inside at night.

2.     Keep outdoor livestock in a lion-proof enclosure, especially the vulnerable ones. If a covered enclosure is not an option, make sure the fences surrounding outdoor livestock are high.

3.     Keep brush trimmed so that deer and mountain lions cannot hide in it.

4.     Fence gardens to avoid attracting deer, which might attract mountain lions.

5.     Keep garbage cans inside or make sure they are secure so as not to attract raccoons, which may also attract mountain lions.

6.     Clean up dead livestock as soon as possible.

7.     If mountain lions persist to be seen in the area, try using non-lethal deterrents like alarm systems which make loud noises or guard dogs.

While mountain lions moving closer to us may cause some anxiety initially for the wildlife lovers among us, I have a lot of faith in Californians when it comes to their ability to peacefully coexist with cougars. This is partially because they’ve already demonstrated that mountain lions are important to them. In 1990, Californians used a successful ballot initiative to distinguish mountain lions as a “specially protected mammal” which cannot be hunted.  Even though the mountain lions in California are not considered endangered, Californians went out of their way to protect them-giving them a designation which hasn’t ever been given to another animal. Californians also helped to bass SB 132, a bill that requires Fish & Wildlife to use non-lethal methods in dealing with ‘problem’ mountain lions when possible.

I am proud to come from California, a state with beautiful wild lands and wildlife. I am proud to be amongst people who love and respect nature as much as I do. I’m proud to have grown up in a place where I was able to see a mountain lion in its natural habitat and can reasonably have faith that the following generations may be awarded the same experience.

Mountain lions are cool creatures, and if we do our best to avoid conflict, we could be sharing a landscape with them for generations to come.