Last March, two young California men were searching for a fallen deer antler in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento when they were startled by a young mountain lion walking toward them less than 10 yards away. Experts say the best thing to do when a mountain lion approaches is to raise your arms to make yourself bigger, scream, and slowly back away. The young men, Tyren Brooks, 21, and Wyatt Brooks, 18, did just that, but the lion was undeterred.
When Wyatt fell, the lion attacked him, thrusting its fangs into his face. As he pushed the cat away, the cat grazed his face, and the lion turned and attacked Tylen, locking its jaws on Tylen’s neck. Wyatt saw his brother’s arm go limp and the lion drag Tylen off the road and into the bushes.
Wyatt struggled but managed to call 911. Fifteen minutes later, two sheriff’s deputies arrived in a car, followed by an ambulance. “Officers spotted footprints dragging through the bushes and followed them to the cat, which was still crouched over Taylen’s body,” wrote Malcolm Brooks, the young men’s uncle. After police fired warning shots, the cat disappeared. He was then captured and killed by county trappers.
Brooks’ story about the incident appeared in new york times magazine December reignited the debate over mountain lions and how to manage them.
Experts say there are simply too many lions in some places, and many have lost their fear of humans.
For Mr. Brooks, there is no question what should be done in parts of California – what should be known as “tree and free.” That is, to reduce habituation and instill fear of humans, hunters with hounds are allowed to chase the lion until it climbs a tree and flees. But California’s lions are highly protected, and many wildlife conservationists want to maintain strict protections for these charismatic animals, including a ban on “harassment” of dogs.
But some experts say there are simply too many lions in some places, many of which have lost their fear of humans, and that trees and free range alone are not enough. “They need hunting,” said John Chandler, the El Dorado County professional trapper who captured the lion that attacked Brooks’ nephew. “It solves everything.”
There are an estimated 30,000 mountain lions in the United States, with the majority in the West. Cougar numbers are not well known because they are not federally protected and have not been well studied. But they’re popping up in more places, from the Midwest to the East Coast, and they’re stirring up controversy.
Mountain lions are also known as pumas, cougars, and panthers. They live alone and feed primarily on deer. They are the second largest wild cat in North America (the jaguar is the largest). In the United States, the average weight of a male mountain lion is over 135 pounds, and females weigh nearly 95 pounds. It is the world’s most widely distributed wild terrestrial mammal, found from Canada to South America.
Tyren Brooks (left) and his brother Wyatt.
El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office
Unlike wolves and grizzly bears, mountain lions are managed by states nationwide, so regulations are literally all over the map and vary widely. Lion hunting is banned in California due to a 1990 voter initiative. Mountain lions are considered a pest in Texas and can be shot year-round with a general hunting license without a special permit.
Florida is the only place where it is federally managed as an endangered species.
Attacks like the one against the Brooks brothers cause much debate. Since 1890, there have been at least 32 fatal attacks and more than 170 non-fatal attacks on humans by mountain lions. The number of encounters is increasing as more people encroach on wild lands, whether building homes or hobby farms or hiking and biking, and are widely disseminated by social media and the press. .
Washington state has been the scene of several attacks. Last year, five women riding mountain bikes near Snoqualmie were attacked by a 75-pound young man that made headlines. They were able to fight off the animal and then pin it to the ground under the bike until state Fish and Wildlife officials arrived and killed it. One motorcyclist was seriously injured. Two years ago, a 9-year-old girl was nearly killed in an attack near Spokane, but has since recovered. In 2018, a mountain biker was attacked and killed by a lion.
Lion management is a voter initiative in some states, and hunting with hounds is prohibited in Washington and Oregon.
California suffered the most attacks in 40 years, leaving 22 people injured and four killed. Although their numbers are relatively small, the impact of attacks by predators consistently makes headlines and leads to calls for policy changes. At the same time, the lion is charismatic and has a lot of support.
Of course, Northern California and Southern California are very different places. P-22, an unlikely lion who had lived near the Hollywood sign and in Griffith Park for years, symbolized the habitat fragmentation and genetic isolation of mountain lions in the southern part of the state. The Center for Biological Diversity has announced that five populations of mountain lions on the central coast and south are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss.
Researchers recently revised down their estimate of the number of lions in the state from about 6,000 to between 3,200 and 4,500 after a comprehensive study.
One of the wildcards in managing lions and other wildlife is “voting biology.” In some states, mountain lion management is a voter initiative. Washington state and Oregon both banned hunting with hounds in the 1990s. Colorado, which has about the same number of mountain lions as California, recently voted against a plan to ban hunting of mountain lions, lynx and bobcats.
A puma is perched on a tree.
Susan Parker/Alamy Stock Photo
Some experts and hunting advocates have criticized such “voting biology,” saying it is often based on emotion rather than science.
Others believe it is an important way to influence change and avoid special interests. Dan Ashe, former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, believes hunting mountain lions is unethical. “I’ve never had much interest in so-called ‘trophy hunting,’ especially when animals are chased to exhaustion by commercial operators using dogs and GPS tracking, and then shot and killed by ‘hunters.’ ” he wrote in a Colorado newspaper. While sitting weakly on a tree. ”
California, where the attack on Malcolm Brooks’ nephew occurred, uses Proposition 117, passed in 1990, which gives mountain lions strict “special protections.” Sport hunting was banned. Although the “tree ban” did not specifically prohibit it, the state interpreted the law to not allow lions unless they posed a direct threat. But Brooks advocates a return to tree-and-free. This is how lions are hunted across the country. The lion is shot and killed after being planted in a tree. But Brooks said the pursuit doesn’t have to end in a murder.
“The trick is to train the hounds by taking them on a run and giving them enough stress until they take shelter in the trees. This was done long before the English arrived in the New World with their purpose-bred hounds. “It’s a naturally evolved conditioned reflex that they learned before,” he said. Said. “Bears have been driving lions into trees since time immemorial, they just do it so they can escape.
“We don’t want mountain lions to live under threat of unnecessary or merciless persecution,” wildlife conservationists say.
“For over 30 years [California has] We haven’t been able to approach managing that species the same way that every other state is managing it and managing other species,” Brooks said. “Chickens now appear to be coming home to roost, along with over-habituated lions who have put little pressure on them for decades.”
Bert George is a wildlife biologist from the Kalispell Tribe of Northeast Washington. He and his colleagues just published their four-year results. study The researchers found that using trained hunting dogs was effective in restoring fear of humans. “The question was how close they could get before and after Tree and Free,” George said. “In many cases, the distance doubled or tripled. And they started running away faster. They learned that human voices meant trouble.”
But Brent Lyles, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, which works to protect mountain lions and advocates for scare tactics and improved livestock management, said more research is needed.
Existing research on Tree and Free is “not definitive, but it’s a start,” he says. “There is no data that it is effective. We do not want mountain lions to be exposed to the threat of unnecessary or callous persecution.” California, in collaboration with Utah State University and other institutions, is We have just begun a study comparing hunting dogs’ tracking with hunting dog tracking. Fear devices such as flashing lights or loud sounds caused by movement. The Turbo Fradry is an electric fence with a red flag to ward off predators.
A mountain lion captured on camera at the eastern end of Southern California’s Santa Susana Mountains.
National Park Service / Alamy Stock Photo
Lyles’ group often works with homeowners and teaches them about effective deterrents. “There are all sorts of flashing lights and noise-making devices that can be used to protect livestock, this and that that is activated by movement, and can be used in conjunction with husbandry practices such as night-time fencing.” It’s possible. It’s not as expensive as people think and it’s effective. Livestock guard dogs can be really helpful if done correctly. Motion activated noise makers work very well if done correctly.”
John Chandler is a trapper in El Dorado County. He has been working with people with mountain lion problems for 25 years and is the trapper who responded to an attack on two young men and captured and killed the lion.
Chandler believes the situation for mountain lions in parts of California, including El Dorado County, has become much more dangerous. “It’s getting crazy,” he said. “We don’t know how many lions are walking around the neighborhood at night.” But with the widespread use of surveillance cameras, it’s becoming clear how many lions are out there. It has become.
“We have more mountain lions than we can handle,” he said, adding that there are “many more” encounters with lions. “Wow, so much more. And they [the lions] A lot has changed. They are no longer afraid of people. They are not afraid of dogs. ” Chandler is authorized to lead a team of hounds to chase away lions that approach humans.
He believes lion behavior started to change after California banned hunting black bears with hounds in 2012. This custom also included wiping out lions that were frightened by dogs. He plants and releases trees, and says, “I’ve planted trees on the same lion 10 times.”
Is hunting useful? “Of course. In states where you can hunt, you don’t have this problem,” he says. “But that will never happen in California. I don’t see a situation where they bring back hunting unless more kids are killed.”
