Farmers meet with wardens to hash out truth about mountain lion sightings

Representatives of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife met with a few dozen members of farm and neighborhood watches from Stanislaus and Merced counties Wednesday night to separate mountain lion myth from mountain lion reality.

More than a dozen people from Modesto to Oakdale to Hilmar have reported seeing a mountain lion in the past several weeks. The only confirmed sighting, state officials said Wednesday night, remains a Sept.21 incident on Turlock’s east side. That Sunday night, Fish and Wildlife – responding to the area after a Turlock police officer reported the sighting – saw the cat, which jumped out of a tree about 15 feet away from a warden.

Some new details about the incident emerged at Wednesday’s meeting. Among them: wardens set a trap for the mountain lion in a yard near where the original sighting was reported, and from where they recovered a “very good print,” Lt. Phil McKay said. “But it never returned to that yard.”

Other sightings, including a report from an off-duty officer near Denair earlier this month, have not been confirmed. A horse felled in the Hilmar area was disposed of before a warden could examine it to determine what killed it, officials said, but they believe it was a dog or coyote.

McKay, who oversees the territory of Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties, also confirmed that a goat killed in Oakdale last week was felled by a mountain lion.

Cristen Langner, Fish and Wildlife unit biologist for the Merced area, explained that mountain lions generally will “cache,” or partially hide, prey after killing it, and then feed off it for about a week.

That didn’t happen in Oakdale; nothing returned to feed off the goat. McKay said that could be because the mountain goat got scared off.

Outside of that animal, McKay said, there haven’t been any reports of pets missing or discoveries of wild animals that had been killed.

Chris Cahill, game warden for the Turlock area, said he has responded to numerous calls, many of them in the middle of the night, of reported sightings that turned out to be everything from a house cat to a raccoon, and several dogs.

“When I would go into Turlock to get my mail from my (post office) box, calls would skyrocket in the area they saw me driving around,” he said. “It got to the point if I wasn’t responding to something, I would stay out of Turlock.”

Social media, where several sightings have been reported, has been as much a hindrance as a help, authorities said.

“This mountain lion has a Facebook page,” Cahill said. He pointed to a photo that was circulated on social media last week – the grainy photo showed mountain lions drinking from a livestock trough, and the story was that it came from the Hilmar/Turlock area.

The photo was legitimate; the story was not. It came from the other side of the county, in a wildland area near the Santa Clara County line, several months ago.

Some of the farmers in attendance expressed frustration with state law that protects mountain lions; voters approved the law in 1992. The wardens suggested that voters could overturn the law, but that is difficult to accomplish.

And McKay emphasized that the law does not preclude people from taking action against a mountain lion that is threatening or attacking humans, pets or livestock.

He said wardens responded to a call in Del Puerto Canyon on Stanislaus County’s West Side in which a hunter came upon a mountain lion and perceived the animal was a threat.

“We investigated and determined it was a legal shoot,” he said. “Public safety is our highest priority.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2014 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Farmers meet with wardens to hash out truth about mountain lion sightings."