[pct-l] Mountain Lion Attack

[Campy]

We believe that, beginning with the Sierra Nevada Bighorn sheep 
becoming emergency-listed as a Federal Endangered animal, this unique 
subspecies has begun making a comeback. With the January 2000 Federal 
listing (a year after California's listing, but which the Federal 
listing trumps), hunting of the mountain lion was authorized on a 
limited scale. The conditions which were set required that a lion had 
to be an immediate threat to a specific Sierra Bighorn - not just any 
lions, not just any Sierra Bighorn. A licensed-federal hunter living on 
his ranch in Owens Valley performs this duty as required. One hundred 
or so Bighorn individuals occupied the Sierra Nevada in the year 1995; 
the count appears to be gaining, with over 350 individuals living here 
currently. It's now again possible to see a Bighorn sheep while hiking 
the PCT, and most assuredly so near certain of its less-traveled Sierra 
Nevada approaches. On this portion of the PCT, it is statistically more 
likely that a hiker may catch sight of a mountain lion.

A secondary feature within the Eastern Sierra is that the US Forest 
Service and cooperating permittee sheep grazers have reduced possible 
contact of domestic sheep with the Bighorn. The threat had been the 
decimation of a Bighorn herd via a lethal pneumonia variant by simple 
nose-to-nose contact across a fence made with domestic sheep, to which 
this variant poses a low threat. To my knowledge, there have been no 
instances of distemper found within the Sierra Nevada Bighorn 
subspecies in modern times. The ranges that Bighorn had utilized for 
food were normally separated by both spatial and temporal factors from 
those of domestic sheep. By the time the Bighorn reached the lower 
elevations in early winter, many of the domestic sheep would have 
already been taken out.

When mountain lion predation became the dominant threat, the Sierra 
Bighorn learned to avoid their traditional winter range. They were 
forced to stay high within the adverse conditions on wind-blown and 
snow-free ridgelines. Tragic declines in foaling occurred, and 
survivors were appreciably weakened.

The mountain lion occurrence within Owens Valley is now generally 
lowered, and particularly so at Round Valley a few miles north of 
Bishop. This result has permitted the Round Valley mule deer herd to 
revive (17.000 individuals around 1969 when I arrived, down to 1200 due 
to mountain lion predation, and now somewhere near 6,000). Personally, 
I've had three kitty cats killed on our property by mountain lions in 
the past. I have walked blithely and unknowingly beneath a mountain 
lion sitting in our mulberry tree while it was then having dinner with 
one of those kitties. Also gone are those days when a mountain lion 
could sometimes be so brazen as to be found sleeping on a neighbor's 
front porch. We are beginning to hear the wailing of coyotes again, 
which ceased when the mountain lions were active in this area. I look 
for the day when a Sierra Nevada Bighorn sheep can feel like napping on 
my front porch.
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