Mountain Lion Attack

A hiker in California was attacked by a mtn lion and suffered several injuries. The story is below.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/06/27/mountain.lion.attack.ap/index.html

I feel sorry for the victim and the lion in this case ... It is unfortunate that the woman was attacked. It was very brave and heroic of her companions to fight off the attack and rescue her. What will compound the tragedy is if the reactionary political forces use this, and other recent attacks like it, to justify "thinning" the mountain lion population.

Most people mistakenly think that because there has been an increase in mountain lion attacks recently that it necessarily corresponds to an increase in their population. The opposite almost always true. Cougars, which require LARGE home ranges to hunt and breed, are being squeezed into increasingly small parcels of land. Smaller parcels mean less opportunities to hunt, fewer and fewer prey animals to eat, fewer and fewer breeding pairs. The article I read said the lion was "emaciated". Not exactly a condition that would indicate a thriving, burgeoning lion population. Add to the fact that more and more people are using these same remaining parcels of open land for recreation and presto! ... You have the recipe for what we are seeing now: a spike in the number of lion attacks.

Quote: "He said the incident was the 15th mountain lion attack on a human in California since 1890."

"In January, a mountain lion killed a cyclist and mauled another near Los Angeles."

Saying that there have been 15 attacks in 114 years makes it sound so much better than "this is the second attack in only 6 months". Time to drop that "1890" line. I hope that people who participate in outdoor activities in the Western states use caution in the big cat areas.