Cougar's 9-hour detour in downtown Mountain View

 

Mountain lion 46M hid behind bushes at this apartment building at South Rengstorff Avenue and California Street. Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle 

 

The mountain Lion waking up after she was collared in January.
Photo: Handout, Courtesy Santacruzpuma.org

 

The large male cougar that sent Mountain View into conniptions last month before he was tranquilized and taken into the woods was hiding behind a small hedge on a busy street for nine hours as pedestrians and bicyclists passed by only a few feet away, experts say.

The confused cat became trapped amid the hustle and bustle of downtown and laid low until late in the afternoon when he emerged from the hedge and slunk around apartment courtyards, dodging cars and people for another 3 1/2 hours, according to Chris Wilmers, the lead researcher for the Santa Cruz Puma Project.

When the animal was finally spotted, the news set off the kind of frenzy that usually ends in death for mountain lions. This time, it had a different outcome. "These young animals, they are exploring, trying to find a vacant territory, and they are constantly going through novel areas," said Wilmers, an environmental studies associate professor at UC Santa Cruz and one of the Bay Area's foremost experts on mountain lion behavior. "When they get into downtown areas, they basically made a mistake - took a wrong turn - and found themselves in the middle of urbanity and didn't know how to get out."

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The movements of the puma as he crept through town May 6 - a drama documented by the GPS technology in the animal's collar - have given scientists a crucial picture of how the fearsome predators behave when they encounter people.

The data clearly show the cougar, known to scientists as 46M, was not in town looking to feast on human flesh, according to Wilmers, whose project is studying the effect habitat fragmentation has on the big cats.

Instead, Wilmers said, it shows how important travel corridors between wilderness areas are to the feline carnivores. Human-cougar encounters are most frequent when wildlife corridors are blocked by development, he said.

The adventures of 46M actually began in January when the king-size kitty was first captured and collared by researchers. He was with his mother just south of Big Basin Redwoods State Park at the time, but Wilmers knew he would be leaving her soon. Pumas typically leave their mothers to find their own territory when they are 1 1/2 to 2 years old, and 46M was about that age, he said.

Sure enough, the cat left his mother in April and roamed for two weeks over the Santa Cruz Mountains, covering about 40 miles, according to the GPS data plotted by Puma Project researchers.
It was not an unusual trek. Male cougars have been known to travel hundreds of miles before establishing territory and settling down. But instead of finding new wilderness, this young puma crossed Interstate 280 on May 5 and was soon traveling through the backyards of tract homes, creeping by mansions and sidling past condominium complex swimming pools in Los Altos Hills.

 

The mountain Lion in a cage after he was captured in May. Photo: Handout, Courtesy Santacruzpuma.org

Playing field, parking lots

He loped across the playing field and parking lot at Egan Junior High School in Los Altos and wandered through a Target store parking lot into downtown Mountain View, where he evaded detection by moving mostly at night, according to data from the animal's collar.
At 5:30 a.m. May 6, the mountain lion crouched down behind a 2-foot-tall row of bushes in front of an apartment building at South Rengstorff Avenue and California Street and remained there for 9 1/2 hours, the GPS data show.

The spot he chose is one of the most densely populated areas of the city, 4 miles from the nearest open space. There are 22 apartment complexes on the block where he hunkered down and the sidewalks are normally bustling with pedestrians, including children and dog walkers, who likely passed within a few feet of the big cat. "My best guess at this point is that he was looking for a way out, but he was so deep into the urban area that he was not sure where to go to get back to open space," Wilmers wrote in a blog analyzing the incident.

Cougars, he said, can crouch so that their bodies are only 8 inches off the ground and lay motionless for hours, concealing themselves despite minimal cover. "Amazingly, despite being walked and driven past by hundreds of people, nobody saw him," Wilmers said. "Perhaps people will find it reassuring that he didn't bother anyone."

The biggest danger at that point, according to Wilmers, was that a dog would smell the cougar in the bushes and investigate. Cougars are natural enemies of wolves and generally avoid large dogs, but they will lash out when cornered.

The confused and disoriented mountain lion emerged from behind the bush at 3 p.m., went up the steps and into the courtyard of the Parkview West apartment complex across the street and from there hightailed it across several streets in search of better cover. He was first spotted about 6:30 p.m at nearby Rengstorff Park, prompting a soccer team to flee the field, panicked parents to grab their children and police to rush to the scene.

The frightened feline was eventually cornered in a nearby parking garage as a helicopter flew above and the tweets started flying. Wildlife officials tranquilized 46M and relocated him to an open space preserve west of Mountain View. He has since gone north into a forested area west of Woodside and has avoided population centers, Wilmers said.

 

46M lounges in a tree during his urban trek in Mountain View last month. He was eventually cornered in a parking garage. Photo: Handout, Courtesy Santacruzpuma.org

Other wayward cougars

Young 46M wasn't the only cougar to run into trouble since the Puma Project began in 2008, according to Wilmers, who has collared more than 40 mountain lions in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a place where the animals were thought to be extinct a few decades ago.

One young puma was caught hiding in an aqueduct in downtown Santa Cruz about this time last year. That cougar, known as 39M, was collared and released. He got run over and killed by a car on Highway 17 several months later.

A young collared female known as 11F was documented via GPS wandering through people's backyards in urban neighborhoods east of the Lexington Reservoir a few years ago. She eventually turned back after running into a 20-foot wall on Highway 85 that she couldn't scale. She was eventually put to death for killing someone's goats.

That mountain lion was one of several to cross Highway 17. At least a half dozen cougars have been hit and killed over the years between the Lexington Reservoir spillway and the Cats Restaurant and Tavern in Los Gatos, and at the notoriously treacherous Laurel Curve in Santa Cruz County.

Puma casualties

One of the dead was a collared puma with a fetus in her belly. Another was apparently hit by a car, lost its collar and was later photographed by a trail camera with a giant bloody scrape on its haunch. That cougar was eventually killed by trappers under a depredation permit after it, too, killed a farmer's goats.

Another young male mountain lion traveled through Santa Cruz County across the highway to Gilroy, then went north almost to Pacifica before he turned around and settled in Santa Clara County, Wilmers said. He said none of the carnivorous felines seemed malnourished, and he doesn't believe the recent encounters have anything to do with drought or global warming. "It's the time of year," he said. "This is the time of year you are most likely to see young animals dispersing from their moms."

It is for this reason, he said, that the natural movements of wildlife must be incorporated into municipal development plans. Wilmers said cougars are often forced into populated areas when road and home construction block their historical travel routes among the mountainous regions of California.

California cougar facts

-- Mountain lions are called by more names than any other cat, including puma, panther, catamount and cougar, depending on the region.
-- As many as 5,000 pumas live in California, but that is only an estimate. The big cats are so elusive that no one has been able to get an accurate count.
-- Thousands of the big cats were killed between 1907 and 1963, when bounties were offered for shooting them. In 1920, the estimated cougar population in California was 600.
-- Cougar hunting was banned in California in 1990 when the animals were given special protected status under the California Wildlife Protection Act. They can't be legally killed except when they prey on pets and livestock or when declared a threat to public safety.
-- An average of about 112 cougars are killed in the state each year primarily by trappers or ranchers with depredation permits. Researchers say most encounters are the result of human incursions into mountain lion territory.

Attacks on humans

There have been 17 verified mountain lion attacks on humans in California since 1890, including six deaths. The fatal attacks include:
-- January 2004: Mark Reynolds, 35, was killed during a mountain bike ride at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in Orange County. The amateur racer's partially eaten remains were found after the same puma later attacked a female rider, who was saved by fellow riders who drove the puma off as it tried to drag her away.
-- December 1994: Iris Kenna, 56, was attacked and killed while hiking alone near Cuyamaca Peak in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park in San Diego County.
-- April 1994: Barbara Schoener, 40, was attacked, killed and partially eaten by an 80-pound cougar while jogging on a trail in the Auburn State Recreation Area in the Sierra foothills.

Online extra

Santa Cruz Puma Project researcher Chris Wilmers analyzes the movements of 46M in his blog at http://santacruzpumas.org/blog.

 source