Trapped in the Santa Cruz Mountains: Experts say just 30 or 40...

People who live in the mountains can help the lions by keeping their dogs locked up at night and by removing fences that hinder the movement of deer and lions. Preserving the habitat linkages is going to be very difficult as long as California's population keeps growing by more that 1000 people per day.

Mountain Lions (Cougars) present currently live in Bush Gulch in Rio del Mar; a 70+ acre Canyon that is also home to several endangered plants and home to the Santa Cruz Long Toed Salamander (another endangered species). Habits such as these should remain without development if such species are to have a chance to survive. The Mountain Lions will leave people alone if people stay out of their habitat and stop taking their homes away through continued development.

Isn't it black tailed deer that they prey on? There are no mule deer in the Santa Cruz Mountains

There used to be brown bears in the SC mountains. we should bring them back for the good of the ecosystem, they could help thin out the population of all the tree hugging animal rights idiots who want cougars roaming in their back yards.

I would not be sad if mountains lions disappear from the local mountains, just as I am not sad that grizzly bears are gone. There are too many people living in the mountains already for mountain lions to be in the mix.

Actually, bugsy, there used to be grizzly bears in the Santa Cruz mountains, too. Maybe we should reintroduce them so one of them would get you, because you don't seem to understand that YOU are in the cougar's backyard, not the other way around. Then you could survive with one eye and a plate in your head, like Mountain Charley.

brown bears ARE grizzly bears.

Angelina wrote:

Actually, bugsy, there used to be grizzly bears in the Santa Cruz mountains, too. Maybe we should reintroduce them so one of them would get you, because you don't seem to understand that YOU are in the cougar's backyard, not the other way around. Then you could survive with one eye and a plate in your head, like Mountain Charley.

LOL.

This post is full of win.

Give me a break you tree hugging hippies..

Sure, I live animals. But it's survival of the fittest. Humans ARE the fittest. We need land to build. If the animals are eventually extinct from the area because of this than so be it..

Concerned in Rio Del Mar.. PLEASE. We live in the ridiculous Salamander Protection Zone in RDM. In a decade of living here I have never seen even ONE. SO everyone in the area has ridiculous building restrictions for a tiny slimy little critter that does WHAT for us?

Idiots.

Great article. Informative.

Ridiculous wrote:

Give me a break you tree hugging hippies..
Sure, I live animals. But it's survival of the fittest. Humans ARE the fittest. We need land to build. If the animals are eventually extinct from the area because of this than so be it..
Concerned in Rio Del Mar.. PLEASE. We live in the ridiculous Salamander Protection Zone in RDM. In a decade of living here I have never seen even ONE. SO everyone in the area has ridiculous building restrictions for a tiny slimy little critter that does WHAT for us?
Idiots.

Would you even know one if you saw one, or know where/when to look? Actually biodiversity serves humans, not just the critters we're protecting...So if only on a selfish level (one that seems to resonate with you), you might want to consider it important that we protect our unique biodiversity. Now go fill up that Hummer and drive down to Gayle's for some 6$ muffins...

bugsy - move back to sunnyvale, or whatever flat and concrete jungle you come from. you dont belong in the los gatos mountains.

Ridiculous wrote:

Give me a break you tree hugging hippies..
Sure, I live animals. But it's survival of the fittest. Humans ARE the fittest. We need land to build. If the animals are eventually extinct from the area because of this than so be it..
Concerned in Rio Del Mar.. PLEASE. We live in the ridiculous Salamander Protection Zone in RDM. In a decade of living here I have never seen even ONE. SO everyone in the area has ridiculous building restrictions for a tiny slimy little critter that does WHAT for us?
Idiots.

You're missing the point of these protection zones. They are the excuses that people use to prevent other people from using their property, so that the property ends up being preserved so that the neighbors don't have to deal with change.

Btw, I saw one of these salamanders at my home when I lived in Soquel in the mid-80s - they're pretty cool-looking.

"bugsy - move back to sunnyvale, or whatever flat and concrete jungle you come from. you dont belong in the los gatos mountains."

Wait, I don't belong here but mountain lions do?

There used to be tribes of native americans living in santa cruz too. Perhaps we should bring them back and return to them the land that they used to live on.

Times sure change, dont they?

It is sad to think one day the mountain lion will disapear just like the grizzly bear. You people seem to forget that these are wild animals and yes we have pushed them from their "backyards" for years. Your animals shouldn't be left outside in the first place. Its ridiculous to shoot an animal for what it does naturally.

The loins have a right to exist. Screw the republicans who want every animal dead, and every inch of the earth paved. Move to LA if you like that.

local dave wrote:

The loins have a right to exist.

Did you mean to post this in the naked lady thread?

I lived in the Santa Cruz mountains most of my life. I have run into Mountain Lions both up in Felton and even in Soquel next to the high school once.

I agree that we live in their backyards. In each instance, I was close enough to be attacked. But I simply stood still, looked as large as possible and did not run. Both times they simply left. I also found myself in a stare off with a cougar for 5 min in Big sure who simply walked away. Most Mountain Lion attacks happen to Joggers and people riding bikes, because they are moving...which sparks the instinct of any cat.

Its sad that when you call the Rangers, they come with intention of killing the lion rather then capturing and redeploying it further in the mountains if its close to a school, or leaving it alone all together. If you live in the mountains, you should expect to live with such creatures and learn to enjoy their presence rather then fearing them. What exactly makes us humans more important than any other creature? Our ability to kill for fun, or maybe its our inability to live in a symbiotic way with the remaining wildlife we have not killed off completely? Or ruining most of the planet we don't seem to have much regard for. In my eyes this makes us possibly the least important creatures on this earth.

The last grizzly bear we know of was killed on a mountain in the Santa Cruz mountains viewable from Loch Lomand and written about in several history books about Santa Cruz.

If we try real hard we can kill off every creature that has his teeth and is large enough to scare us.

bugsy wrote:

There used to be brown bears in the SC mountains. we should bring them back for the good of the ecosystem, they could help thin out the population of all the tree hugging animal rights idiots who want cougars roaming in their back yards.

I couldn't agree with you more!

On another note hose tree huggers might want to let the Forest service cut some fire roads into some of the thousands of miles of forest that you can't drive a firetruck into, to put the fires out and let the lumber company's thin out the forest some so they don't all burn up!! But no the Sierra Club wants it all to themselves, remember "you can't wipe your butt with a spotted owl"

The last grizzly bear in Santa Cruz county was shot dead in Boulder Creek in 1903 for the record.
"Indigeonous" human beings lived with them in some form of harmony for 10,000 years but fast forward and with the entrance of Henry Wadell and within about 50 years of his mauling death by one & they were EXTINCT......mountain lions are soon to follow my fellow humans and we arent very far behind them either because we are extinguishing life itself on earth with tens of thousands of species being eradicated by our disgusting "religion" of over consumption. oink oink