Mountain lion shot and killed in San Jose

An 80-pound mountain lion was shot this morning in west San Jose after a homeowner called police to report that the large cat was in a tree in her backyard, San Jose police reported.
The homeowner, living in the 1700 block of Los Gatos Almaden Road, called police at 6:30 a.m. to report that her two dogs had a mountain lion cornered in a tree in her backyard. The big cat had been in the tree since about 5 a.m., police said.

Police officers and the California Department of Fish and Game arrived at the residence. After assessing the size of mountain lion, a lieutenant with the Department of Fish and Game decided that the cat needed to be killed because tranquilizers from a tranquilizer gun would not take immediate affect.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/baycitynews/archive/2005/04/26/mountainlion26.DTL

It makes me so sad that such a magnificent animal has no real natural habitat anymore. I grew up in PA and at one time, those big cats roamed free in the mountains. No more.

Los Gatos

n/t

I lived in east Los Gatos (east of 880), near the western end of Los Gatos-Almaden Road.

Here's an aerial photo of the neighborhood. The Santa Cruz mountains (not shown) are to the south. The address mentioned in the story would be toward the right edge of this photo. Los Gatos-Almaden Road is the road running somewhat horizontally below the midline of this photo. I lived in the pink-roofed condominium complex visible toward the left-center. The "lake" at the left is the Vasona reservoir. I loved it there.

on the peoples' property! And endangering their pets!

It had no business being there.

:sarcasm:

:cry:

We have mountain lions a little to the west here, in the Santa Cruz mountains, and I see it as one of those "getting along" kinds of things. I don't go wandering the woods by myself at dusk or dawn, especially if the hackles on my neck warn me that one of the big cats is about.

I really wish they'd have tried harder to tranquilize the critter. And for the record, 80 lbs isn't that big a lion either, not for this area.

*sighs*

they have shot people's cute little pets...

there was no reason to shoot this cat...what 10 minutes for a tranquilizer?

They're morans.

they could have a couple of guys cover the cat in case the animal got po'd by the tranquilizer dart. Otherwise, they could have waited a few minutes and trapped the animal for release in a more appropriate place.

These jerks just didn't have a clue.

I very much doubt that a treed mountain lion was going to suddenly come down from the tree if it was shot with a dart. This seems just plain sad.

Humans are now on the menu...that's all.

This morning on CNN, there was a segment of a black bear in a tree in someone's back yard. That bear was a hell of a lot bigger than that cat. The bear was darted and then hoisted down and into a truck.

I guess it was just more expedient to kill the mountain lion than to properly tranquilize it?

Well. It wasn't considered more expedient to let Terri Schiavo die than to spend 15 friggin years trying to revive a corpse but it's somemore better to kill a fully conscious creature just because cops are stupid and lazy?

Wonderful. Goddamned idiots. :mad:

We're at about 2,000 feet elevation, going into the Sierra Nevadas, and the lions will come down sometimes from the higher elevations and take goats and sheep from our neighbors. I'm hoping they stick to those smorgasboards, and not discover my one little Bitsy the Wonder Goat. She's a pygmy goat, and I think fairly well protected, since she lives with the CowBoy (Brahma steer) and right next to our 3 big Warmblood horses. Not too many lions are going to like those odds.

Very, very saddened to see this news:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/316259.shtml
The Denali alpha male wolf has now also been killed. You may have read last month that trappers killed her mate, the alpha female. The male kept going back to the site where the female was killed (they mate for life) to look for her, and they finally shot him too. Just over the park boundary. This wolf pack has been studied for 40 years, and this particular pair were very well documented, and known all over the world. The hunter's guide brought the wolf's radio collar back to the researchers.

I'm in Oakhurst.

I think you have to FAIL a certain IQ test to be in any Fish and Game Dept, no matter what state. The ones with a real education and the intelligence to use it can get better jobs...and usually do.