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By Joshua Molina
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/14/2008 01:33:26 AM PDT
A bizarre weekend mountain lion attack has Palo Alto residents on edge, forcing city officials to close two parks and call in a tracker who specializes in catching big cats.
Although mountain lions have been spotted in the city many times before, authorities said it was the first known attack on a human in Palo Alto history.
A man in his 50s told police that he was walking Saturday about 5:30 p.m. along a ridge trail on the backside of Foothills Park when he felt a force push him from behind and send him tumbling down. His fall was broken, however, when he hit a tree.
The mountain lion fell more than 15 feet into the creek below before scampering away, the hiker said.
"He miscalculated the terrain and the size of the prey," Palo Alto police agent Dan Ryan said. The victim, who asked that his name not be released, suffered only cuts and bruises from the fall, Ryan said.
Following the attack, officials closed the park as well as the nearby Enid Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, where a mountain lion was also spotted on Saturday.
In 2004, Palo Alto police fatally shot a mountain lion as it lounged in a camphor tree in a residential neighborhood, triggering protests from animal rights activists.
The tracker is based in Salinas.
www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9875323
( I list the whole thing here because The San Jose Mercury-News requires you register to see articles. I'm not trying to raise an alarm. Just find it interesting. Kind of follows the previous coyote post. I think we just need to be careful.)
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Re: Mountain lion attacks man in Palo Alto
Tue, July 15, 2008 - 8:23 PMIf y'all been keeping up with this story, you'll note that the trackers found no evidence that there was any mountain lion, no tracks, no scent, no traces on the man's clothing . . . He probably made it up.
HOWEVER, we do have mountain lions in the area, and some of them would do something like this. Mountain lions are wonderful animals and all, but they're also extremely dangerous. I don't know enough to say whether or not the CA hunting ban should be lifted, but it's an issue we all need to brush up on. The cougar population is numerous enough, some would say it's too numerous and that their numbers are pushing more lions into places near cities. Just capturing them and dropping them off in the mountains isn't good enough because the population there might be maxed out already and that would just push them back into populated areas, or pressure them to seek out new prey, like humans. The attack rate that they publish (16 attacks in 100 years) is misleading because that rate has increased dramatically in recent years. We are also expanding into their habitat, and putting more and more pressure on remote wilderness areas thru fragmentation and various uses, so they're showing up in areas that they've traditionally stayed away from. We're also much more aware of them. And, if we treated our wild lands better, we wouldn't be having these conflicts with Mother Nature.
Like I said, I'm not an expert on this matter, but those are some of the arguments. Y'all go read up now, y' hear! -
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Re: Mountain lion attacks man in Palo Alto
Tue, July 15, 2008 - 8:38 PMYour right. Here's the update:
Lion attack a false alarm
By Will Oremus
Palo Alto Daily News
Article Launched: 07/14/2008 09:25:51 PM PDT
Foothills Park in Palo Alto was closed Monday while California Fish and Game wardens...
Investigators found neither hide nor hair — not even a saliva sample — of a mountain lion that allegedly attacked a hiker in Palo Alto's Foothills Park on Saturday, raising doubt that the incident really happened.
The report of an attack, which came from an unidentified 50-year-old Portola Valley man Sunday, touched off a swift investigation that brought three state game wardens, a professional tracker and a team of hounds to the 1,400-acre park Monday. Meanwhile, a forensics expert in Sacramento examined the victim's shirt for such telltale signs as fur or saliva.
All came up empty, leaving officials to conclude that the man's alarming story was mistaken.
"He believed, I think truly, that he'd been attacked," Palo Alto police agent Dan Ryan said. "We have just not been able to substantiate that with the science."
Still, the city will keep the park and the adjacent Arastradero Open Space Preserve closed for the time being as a precaution.
The man first called authorities about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, saying he had been hiking on the Los Trancos trail about 4 p.m. the day before when a cougar jumped on him from behind. Both he and the lion tumbled down a hillside, he said, and the big cat went on its way.
The man received scrapes and bruises from the fall, but not from the impact of the animal.
He told officials he waited until Sunday to report the incident because he was afraid of getting in trouble: Only
Palo Alto residents and accompanied guests are allowed inside Foothills Park.
When word got to the California Department of Fish & Game on Sunday, they took it seriously, spokesman Steve Martarano said. Mountain lion attacks are rare, with just 16 confirmed in the state since 1890, but six of those have been deadly.
Wardens rushed to Palo Alto, and a professional tracker with the U.S. Department of Agriculture came from King City. A trap the size of a pickup truck bed was set with fresh meat inside.
If wardens found the offending cougar, they planned to kill it. Two attacks on one day by the same animal in Orange County in 2004, one fatal, showed that mountain lions that attack once may do so again, Martarano said.
Meanwhile, game warden Patrick Foy picked up the victim's shirt and drove it to Sacramento for analysis, then drove back to the scene.
After failing to find any clues Monday morning, officials brought the man back to the park to see whether he could show them exactly where the attack occurred. He could not.
Forensics on the shirt came back negative. By 3:30 p.m. Monday, the investigation was called off.
"There are mountain lions in this park," Foy said. "But we found zero evidence of any kind of attack."
Ryan declined to speculate on what the man may have actually seen. He said there were no plans to cite him for trespassing in the park or for making a report that could not be substantiated.
Lester Hodgins, supervisor of Foothills Park, said there are typically a few mountain lion sightings there each year, but he has never heard of an attack. He said he will confer with police and the city manager about reopening the park, possibly as soon as Friday.
origin.mercurynews.com/breaki...9882457
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Re: Mountain lion attacks man in Palo Alto
Sun, July 27, 2008 - 11:29 PM"The mountain lion fell" was all I had to hear to know someone was full of it ....
