Comments on: Fremont Lion Found Dead At School

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 23:47:05 +0000

If you google earth this you’ll see the school sits right on the edge of the East Bay’s wide open hills of the coastal range (as in mountain range and cattle range). And it happens to be an area I’m very familiar with and near where I and a friend had a growling encounter with some kind of creature 20 years ago. The population has only grown since then, both people and cougars…and deer!. It’s been proposed, though never taken seriously, that in some places human habitat should be somehow fenced-off from the wide open spaces that function as habitat for the resurgent wildlife. It’d make bringing back the brown bear a lot more feasible and help hasten re-wilding and the return to pleistocene North America, a goal I support. I’m sure BF does too.

By: shumway10973

shumway10973 — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:32:52 +0000

Any more the cougars are heading into the larger cities because there is no more room for them in their “natural habitat” (I put them in “” because there are many places in southern California where we are invading their home). One other defensive thing to remember, if you know you are going into their territory, ie: from foothills on up the mountains, don’t wear red. They have discovered that these animals do see red. Makes sense seeing that ultimately they want a wounded animal for food, it’s easier. I have seen a few literally in my back yard, foothills just east of Sacramento. So this should be no surprise to anyone into the reality of nature. We can take conservationism only so far. There needs to be the predator, but they need the room and prey to survive and stay in their areas. Also, we need to quit building out into their territories. We need to decide what kind of people we will be, at one with nature and actually manage it like the Native Americans did around here, or go industrial again and not worry about nature. I’d rather go towards a responsible management of woodlands, but unfortunately there isn’t much money in it for those making the rules about this whole affair.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:13:51 +0000

Well, I am curious to see if anyone comes forward about this. At the time, the person may not have realized that they hit a mountain lion, but they surely must have realized they had hit something. Hitting a creature of this size is not like going over a speed bump, especially if the hit was enough to kill it. This sort of collision can cause extensive damage to the vehicle involved, which I am sure anyone here who has ever hit a deer can attest to. Perhaps if this discovery is made more high profile, then the owners of that car will come forward and more light can be shed on what happened.

By: dstageberg

dstageberg — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:02:54 +0000

Cougars are being found more often near residential areas as a result of game management by popular vote (and somewhat by urban sprawl). The same can be said of black bears. Atleast that has been my experience in Washington State.