Cougar that caused a stir in Mountain View killed on I-280

By Peter Fimrite

Friday, October 10, 2014

A man walks past an apartment complex in June at Rengstorff Avenue and California Street in Mountain View where a mountain lion was spotted in May. The cat hid under the bush for more than nine hours. Photo: James Tensuan / The Chronicle 

The large male cougar that sent Mountain View into conniptions in May when it hid for nine hours behind a small hedge on a busy street, was hit and killed by a car on Interstate 280, near Redwood City. The mountain lion, which was tranquilized and released in the hills after the earlier incident, was killed Oct. 3 as it attempted to cross the highway just north of the Edgewood Road exit, between Highways 84 and 92, said Paul Houghtaling, the field project manager for the Santa Cruz Puma Project.

Houghtaling identified the cougar as 46M, the same puma that created such a stir in Mountain View.

“It’s sad when this happens to an animal,” said Houghtaling, pointing out that younger animals are almost always the ones that get hit by cars. “The younger ones have left home and are forced to live on the margins, crossing roads a lot as they look for a new home.”

 

The accident occurred within a mile of the spot where a young female mountain lion was hit and killed a few months ago, said Houghtaling, who believes the big cat was either heading toward or coming back from the nearby Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve.

The driver of the car was not hurt, but the vehicle was damaged, said Houghtaling, who was notified by California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials after California Highway Patrol officers called them for help.

The puma known as 46M caused a sensation when he crept through Mountain View on May 6 — a drama documented by the GPS technology in the animal’s collar — and became trapped amid the hustle and bustle of downtown.

The young male had left his mother just south of Big Basin Redwoods State Park in April and struck out on his own. But instead of finding wilderness, he crossed Interstate 280, traveled through backyards, loped across playing fields and parking lots and then crouched for 91/2 hours in a 2-foot-tall row of bushes in front of an apartment building in the busiest part of town, the GPS data showed.

When the animal was finally spotted, the news set off the kind of frenzy that usually ends in death for mountain lions, but this time the animal was captured and released in nearby hills. Unfortunately, his wanderlust did not end there, said Houghtaling, who is studying the effect that habitat fragmentation has on the big cats.

The puma traveled north after his release and ended up in open space on the outskirts of Pacifica and Daly City, apparently spending a bit of time around the newly built bicycle and pedestrian trail on old Highway 1 in the Devils Slide area. The GPS also tracked 46M to the Crystal Springs Reservoir area, where he spent awhile before heading back south.

He was hit in the northbound lanes of I-280. “Looking at the places he’s been, it doesn’t strike me as prime lion country,” Houghtaling said. “He was living quite close to a lot of people in Daly City and Pacifica. Despite how close he was to people, he didn’t cause any harm to anyone.”

It was not an unusual trek. Male cougars have been known to travel hundreds of miles before establishing territory and settling down. Still, it shows how important travel corridors between wilderness areas are to the feline carnivores. Experts say human-cougar encounters are most frequent when wildlife corridors are blocked by development.

The Santa Cruz Mountains are isolated on three sides by water and urban areas, meaning there is only limited space for a young male to establish territory. Houghtaling said the plight of 46M offers a valuable lesson. “We were able to track this cat from when he was with his mom to when he was looking for territory of his own,” he said. “It’s sad how it ended, but it gives us insight on how mountain lions live and what they have to deal with.”

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