Folsom Zoo Recap

This past Saturday, MLF hosted its monthly educational booth outside the cougar enclosure at the Folsom Zoo (Sacramento-area, California).  Volunteers handed out free mountain lion postcards to visitors, as well as information on living with lions and fun activity sheets for kids to take home.  These Saturday events are a great way to connect with the community and teach residents in the foothills all about their wild neighbors.  Seeing mountain lions up close in the zoo setting also calms any fear people may have and often brings a new understanding and appreciation for the American lion.

On the Prowl

The two male cougars, Rio and Ventura, were both very active in the morning chasing each other around and chirping a high-pitched “yip” as they played.  When one of the zookeepers arrived with breakfast, they eagerly trotted to the indoor enclosure to enjoy their morning chow (shown in the video clip).  If you listen carefully and ignore the rooster in the background, at the 10 second marker when they are passing each other you can hear a short “yip” chirp from one of the boys.

Flash, the young female (whose controversial rescue story you may remember from last year) spent the day snoozing in her small cave near the front fence.  Perhaps she was annoyed by the rowdy boys, but some visitors wandered if she was mourning the loss of Alder — the zoo’s older female cougar who passed away a few weeks ago and may have served as somewhat of a surrogate mother-figure for Flash.

Remembering Alder

Visitors honored Alder’s memory by sharing their stories of her and coloring paper hearts that will be used to create a memorial display.

Alder will be missed, but everyone took comfort in knowing she was given a good life at the zoo.  Despite health issues and suffering from seizures, Alder was at least twelve years old (an ol’ granny in cougar years!) and maintained her feisty playful attitude until the end.  And looking towards the future, Alder’s passing may now open up a forever home for another orphaned kitten in need.

Join Us

MLF will return to the Folsom Zoo this month for another Saturday outreach event.  New volunteers are welcome to join (you’ll get into the park free) and it’s a great way to learn more about mountain lions.  To get involved, sign up for MLF’s volunteer announcements or send an email to outreach@mountainlion.org.

We hope to see you there!

A special thank you to Estelle, Pat, and Lyn (pictured here from left to right) for helping run the booth.  Great work, ladies!

To learn more about the Mountain Lion Foundation, visit www.MountainLion.org

The Cougar Rewilding Foundation’s (aka the Eastern Cougar Foundation) latest newsletter is now available online.  Go to http://www.easterncougar.org/pages/newltr.htm All previous newsletters can also be downloaded from this site.  If you would like to see cougars restored to their former range in the Midwest and East, please consider joining CRF or making a donation.

In this edition:

Cougar Rewilding Foundation
PO Box 300
Harman, WV 26270
www.easterncougar.org

Mountain Lion Incident Management and Capture and Handling for Natural Resource, Animal Control and Law  Enforcement Professionals

There are increasing confirmations of mountain lions in the Great Plains and Midwest as they naturally disperse from more western areas.  Feral or escaped captive mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, are sometimes detected as well.

Though these cats are not normally an immediate threat to humans, First Responders must manage the situation for the safety of all.

How do you do it? What is the appropriate response to a cougar sighting, encounter, or cornered cat?

The Cougar Rewilding Foundation, in cooperation with the American Ecological Research Institute (–AERIE) and Minnesota Zoo, offers the solution.

With its team of cougar experts, the CRF (formerly Eastern Cougar Foundation) is offering a 2-day workshop on the safe and effective management of cougar incidents from the sylvan to the suburban.

This is a must for first responders such as local police officers, animal control personnel and natural resource professionals.

This workshop will:

1) Provide up-to-date scientific information on cougar biology and behavior

2) Provide information on how to identify cougar sign

3) Demonstrate the latest in immobilizing drugs and techniques, with hands-on practice

4) Answer questions on how to handle immobilized animals, precautions needed, monitoring, and what to expect.

5) Provide first hand information on procedures to use for crowd control, media interaction, and development of your First Responder Team

This one-of-a-kind workshop is designed to give First Responders in areas where pumas are showing up the tools they need to handle the situations safely, efficiently, and professionally.  The course faculty includes:

Dr. John W. Laundré, a veteran cougar biologist with over 20 years experience and dozens of peer-reviewed publications

Dr. Jay Tischendorf, an experienced wildlife biologist and veterinarian with 25 years working with cougars, wolves, and other carnivores

Dr. Jim Rasmussen, professional zoo veterinarian, Minnesota Zoo

When: September 14-15, 2010.
Where: Minnesota Zoo – Apple Valley, MN
Registration Fee: $200

If interested in this unique opportunity, please contact:

Jay Tischendorf DVM
Director, American Ecological Research Institute (–AERIE)
Post Office Box 1826
Great Falls, Montana 59403 USA
Cell:  303-328-8414
E-Mail:   TischendorfJ@Hotmail.com or   Jay.Tischendorf@Novartis.com

Thoughts and reflections from OreCat Director Jayne Miller after attending Oregon’s “That Darn Cat! Cougar Meeting” hosted by Rep Sherrie Sprenger, R-Scio.

August 19, 2010

Well, its been a long night.  I’m glad to be back on top of this mountain, in the dark, all alone and with a resident cougar.  Well, ok, I have two dogs that bark at him.  I left this paradise vacation on top of a mountain in the middle of 900 acres of BLM timber and the comfort of a multimillion dollar cabin; to go to Lebanon Oregon and sit with about 100 angry folks who booed me.  But some did come up later and apologized.  That’s ok, I lived with a brother who use to beat up my Raggedy Ann dolls and hang my barbies by their necks from the ceiling lights.   If you can survive that you can learn to live with anything.  After dropping my husband off at the farm, I did get followed for over an hour back to my trial head and then when the vehicle saw how far out they were, flashed their lights at me and left.  It felt safe to get back to my cougar.  This was the first of many meetings to try and get more cougars killed here in Oregon .  It was Representative Sherrie Sprenger, R-Scio, who said she wanted to hear from the public on the issue of cougars and she did a wonderful job conducting tonight’s meeting, however, she sounded in favor of killing them and not much else.  She was afraid her 13 year old son would be attacked by a cougar, although she had not seen one on her property.  This all happened because six sheep were killed on a farm in the area in 2 months…by six cougar.  So I blogged the news sites and then went to the program to speak on the behalf of the cougar and better management plans.

This is what I experienced:  First of all, ODFW is not referenced in any of the news articles I saw, nor did they mention this incident at the meeting.  They simply said nothing about it.  So, I really do not know if this is true or what happened.  I do know this is not the pattern of cougars.  I do know they can be raised in captivity and released.  I do know that if resident cougars are killed, more cougars will come into the territory.  Its’ called a “sink.” What ever happened, I can guarantee you humans played a big role in it happening.  I saw Cindy and her son at the meeting.  It was her farm this all happened on.  To me she seemed afraid to talk to anyone about this and seemed very afraid in general and appeared to just want to get the night over with.  An older man (I missed his name) spoke on her behalf stating she was too shy to talk and he sounded like Hitler as he ranted about killing cougar.  I heard alot of cougar killing stories that were not confirmed by ODFW or their representatives at the meeting.  There was a great deal of anger, story telling, discord and fear in the voices of the parties who spoke.  No one wanted to listen to reason.  They never mentioned the hounds men, but they sure did exploit children as a reason to kill cougar.  That was the worst part of it.   No one wanted to hear that a child had not been killed by a cougar here in Oregon or California for that matter.  California has more people, more livestock, and more cougar than any State in the Union and only 16 people have been attacked by cougar since 1890 to 2007.  5 were fatal, 2 from rabies (1909).  You can look this up on California ’s Fish and Game website.

Instead they said, “We don’t care!  These are predators and must be killed.  I don’t care if cougars ever exist again!”  And they certainly bashed folks living in Portland and Eugene as not having a right to vote on issues they believe to be their own.  I liked the idea of getting more Oregonians involved with the cost of caring for their wilderness.  I have a good plan about that I hope to share with folks soon!  The hunters claimed they owned the wilderness, and, if I do recall, they owned our ranch every hunting season and we got alot of fences and gates torn down.  I never got to tell them that Oregon belongs to all of us and without any cougars, your children and children’s children will have a much less quality life. I know that is hard to understand, but it is called Tropic Cascadia and is not a good thing to try and live with.  With only a couple of minutes, I had no time to say that your farm feeds the city folks and they in turn supply you with income, and their taxes supply funds to maintain your roads, schools, and infrastructure to sustain your communities.  We are all networked by the streams and rivers that feed our watersheds and the air that is cleaned and made breathable by the forests that sustain us.  I never got to mention that this all happens because of cougars.  Because of their very existence, we exist, the honey bee exists, better deer populations exist and much more.  We Native Americans have known this for thousands of years.  I don’t think folks there tonight wanted to understand the Tropic Cascadia issues vast portions of American and our National Parks are devastated from.  Or the amazing reversals when cougar are reintroduced to these devastated areas.  I don’t think they would understand genetic extinction, anymore than I can understand why ODFW still thinks, after several years of killing more cougar than were killed before M18;  that we have 6000 cougar.  The math does not add up.

Even Jane Goodall has written about Oregon’s devastatingly poor cougar management plan.  Even the Smithsonian has documented this!  We do not have 6000 cougar, we do not have an accurate program that counts them to really know how many we have.   Our numbers are wrong.  We do have a society ill equipped to deal well with cougar.  We as Oregonians lack humanitarian and knowledgeable skills to do so, leaving us to soon be number 37 and then you can say goodbye to OUR wilderness, our quality of water, our vast forests and much much more.  It is my sincerest hope we can remove the polarization, the anger, the fear and the disrespect;  to learn to work together and preserve this great cat.  I am a cattle ranchers daughter, my life has been vested here in Oregon and our agriculture communities all my life and for the rest of my life.  I hear the losses, I’ve experienced them too.  And I know the truth.  I also know from experience that cougars are not that great a threat or that scary.  What was scary to hear and watch was the irrational fear about them.  I wish I could see more of this kind of action against childhood drug issues instead of being wasted on cougars.  From the bottom of my heart I know the that lack of understanding and education causes fear and fear is paralyzing,  and wrong decisions are made from fear. Lets put Oregon on the map by developing a cougar management plan that truly is responsible and is none lethal.  Lets remember that we are all united by the very fact we share the same soil, same water, same air and cities cannot exist without the country and ever more so vis versa.

Kindest regards

Jayne Miller

Fore more information about Jayne and the Oregon Cougar Action Team, visit www.OreCat.org

Big Cat Rescue is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit in our 16th year of operation in Tampa, Fl. We provide a permanent home to more than 100 lions, tigers, leopards, bobcats, cougars and other species most of which were previously abused, abandoned, saved from the fur trade, or retired from performing acts nationwide. Approximately half of our residents were discarded from the exotic pet trade. Our mission is twofold; to give our cats the best life in captivity that we can provide, and to educate the public to the causes of abandonment and abuse, with the goal of building a future of respect for all living things and to end the pet trade in exotic cats.  We are one of the largest specialty sanctuaries in the country, and the only wildcat sanctuary in Florida meeting national standards for accreditation by the Global Federation of Sanctuaries.

In Celebration of the American Lion Campaign, the participants in our Young Adult Expedition summer program recently studied the issues facing cougars both in captivity and in the wild.  They share their new understanding with you here in a Species Spotlight on Cougars, the American Lion!

Big Cat Rescue
12802 Easy Street
Tampa, Fl 33625
813-920-4130 Main Office

www.bigcatrescue.org

Mountain lions contribute to the richness and complexity of our world and are both necessary and integral to our healthy ecosystems.

WildEarth Guardians believes that by fostering awareness and understanding of these beautiful native cats, we can promote common sense precautions to eliminate both potential and perceived human-lion conflicts.

Come to our stunning photo and video presentation and learn about these majestic cats.  The presentation, “Mountain Lions in the West:  Natural History, Conservation, & Co-Existence”, includes tips for living in mountain lion country and discusses the physiology of predation by two charismatic top carnivores:  lions and wolves.

Join WildEarth Guardians’ free presentation:

When:  Tuesday, August 10th, 7pm

Where:  REI
1789 28th Street
Boulder, CO
phone (303) 583-9970

We hope you can make it!

Photo credit: digitalART2

For more information contact our office administrator Angelisa by calling (505) 988-9126 x0 or email her here.

To learn more about WildEarth Guardians, visit our website: www.wildearthguardians.org

For the wild,

Wendy Keefover-Ring
Carnivore Protection Director
WildEarth Guardians
wkeefoverring@wildearthguardians.org

Call of the Wild

Rewilding:  the practice of returning areas of land to a wild state, including the reintroduction of animal species that are no longer found there.
(Webster’s Dictionary)

Since 1999, the Eastern Cougar Foundation (ECF) has sought evidence of this seemingly mythical beast from Nova Scotia to Mississippi. We have reviewed hundreds of solicited photographs. We have spent thousands of hours on the ground following up cougar sightings. We have initiated or participated in sanctioned remote camera projects with state and federal wildlife agencies and conservation organizations in seven states. The tally: zero cougar confirmations.

Meanwhile, recolonizing cougars in the Midwest were being hit, shot, and treed, were being photographed on random remote cams, and were found wandering into towns and cities. We couldn’t deny the evidence. Free-ranging cougars, even in the lowest densities, leave clear, concrete and often multiple sign to support those shadowy sightings. A decade of searching convinced us that wild, breeding cougars no longer roamed eastern forests. It was time to turn the page.

While awaiting (and waiting) recommendations from the pending USFWS 5 – year eastern cougar review, the ECF began working beyond our traditional region, to the Southeast, where we are partnering with panther advocates to jump-start long-stalled reintroductions mandated in the Panther Recovery Plan. To the Midwest, where we are scheduling first-responder training courses to ensure that those young dispersers are permitted safe passage as they recolonize the region, and teaching its citizens that the cats in their midst not only pose little threat, but are essential shepherds of intact ecosystems.

Our new mission: to restore Puma concolor throughout its former native range east of the Rockies and north of Florida. This mission, and our attendant efforts in regions outside our former base, required a name that dove-tails with our ambitions. Our officers, directors and founders have chosen one that captures perfectly developments in the conservation field wedding habitat preservation with ecology; a name reflecting how ecosystems function naturally only when patrolled by their big predators.

As we remember our founding by a humble young West Virginia coal miner and the vision he created for wild cougars in the East, we carry his grace forward committed to recovering our grasslands, forests and coastal plains by restoring our big native cat, as the Cougar Rewilding Foundation.

Respectfully,

Christopher Spatz

President

Cougar Rewilding Foundation

www.cougarrewilding.org

Sadly another one of our state protected mountain lions has been shot, and killed. A resident of Jeffrey Street in the city of SLO saw a mountain lion in one of their backyard trees. They called 911 and the SLO Police Department responded and confirmed there was a mountain lion in their tree about 15 feet from the ground. SLO PD officers established a perimeter in the yard while SLO County Animal Services and California Department of Fish & Game officials responded to the scene.

All agencies assessed the situation and determined that the mountain lion posed a serious threat to the public and neighborhood residents because of its location in a heavily populated residential area, especially if the mountain lion were to flee from the yard into the neighboring yards and residential areas. Officials developed a plan to tranquilize the mountain lion in an attempt to remove it from the area.

At about 6:25PM personnel from the SLO county Animal Services shot the mountain lion with a tranquilizer dart while the animal was still in the tree. Approximately 4 minutes later the lion fell from the tree and landed on the ground. The lion then got up and tried to leave the yard by jumping the rear fence. As the mountain lion began to jump over the rear fence, police officers shot the mountain lion, however it was still able to jump the fence into the rear yard of a neighboring home. Once in the neighboring yard, a police officer shot and killed the lion.

The mountain lion appeared to be an adult. Hopefully not a lactating mother, leaving orphaned cubs behind?

Our Reaction

We appreciate that the responding officers recognized a mountain lion hiding in a tree is not a reason to immediately kill it, and that they tried to do the right thing by resolving the situation non-lethally.  As natural habitats continue to disappear at a high rate, interactions with wildlife will inevitably become more common.  Urban law enforcement could benefit from proper training to better handle mountain lion as well as bear encounters.  All involved had the right intention, they just needed the appropriate training and tools.  We at Animal Rescue Team, Inc. will have a field volunteer from The Mountain Lion Foundation, who offers briefings to law enforcement agencies, and covers “shoot/don’t shoot” scenarios host a training at our facility .

Tips

Even if an official is unable to tranquilize and relocate a lion, we highly recommend giving the animal time and space to move on.  Mountain lions are solitary animals and each one roams its own territory often a hundred square miles or more in size.  They rarely stay in one place for long.  Aversive conditioning can be very effective in scaring a lion away from populated areas.  Just last month, police officers in Gilroy used pepper balls (similar to a paintball gun that shoots pepper spray-like balls) to scare away a wandering mountain lion (read more).  Rubber bullets are one of the more common – and successful – methods used by officers.  Other states like Washington have even started using specially trained Karelian bear dogs to “teach” relocated mountain lions and bears to stay away from towns.  (learn more about this great program or See an example)  Alternatives to killing must be considered.

Working with our Law Enforcement & Wildlife Officials

The Mountain Lion Foundation, in conjunction with Animal Rescue Team, Inc. will be hosting  a one hour briefing at the ART Inc.’s wildlife rehab facility for local law enforcement ONLY as well as media on Friday July 23, 2010 at 15:00.

Our guest speaker will be Robin Parks:

Robin Parks retired from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) in 2004 after a 25 year career in federal law enforcement.  Robin’s career required he work and live in various locations in the US, Europe, Mexico, and on US Navy ships at sea.  A life long admirer of the great cats, he began doing volunteer work at animal sanctuaries in California and other states in 2000 where he first encountered captive mountain lions. This later led him to MLF where he has been a field volunteer in several projects.  He now is very much involved in reaching out to law enforcement agencies who are the first responders to cougar-human encounters.  Robin received a large amount of media coverage for his educational briefing to the Santa Paula Police Department after officers shot and killed a lion kitten in town.  Robin’s presentations provide basic cougar biology and safety tips, but primarily discuss “shoot/don’t shoot” considerations and scenarios which demonstrate that killing a cougar simply because it has wandered into human territory is rarely necessary and is often the wrong decision.  Robin lives in San Diego.

It is clear that the public likes mountain lions and does not want them killed.  There are many effective non-lethal tools out there for handling mountain lion calls.  The Mountain Lion Foundation is happy to help any way they can.  For more information, visit MountainLion.org.

For reservations and directions please call 805 896-1859,

Thank you,

Julia Di Sieno, Executive Director
Animal Rescue Team, Inc.
www.animalrescueteam.net
805 896-1859

Amy Rodrigues, Outreach Coordinator
amy@mountainlion.org
Mountain Lion Foundation
www.mountainlion.org
800 319-7621

On June 30th, California State Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) presented Mountain Lion Foundation Board Chairman, Toby Cooper with a Senate resolution commemorating the Foundation’s “significant contributions” to the passage and implementation of the California Wildlife Protection Act of 1990 (Proposition 117). The resolution recognizes the accomplishments achieved through Proposition 117, a landmark initiative passed by California voters twenty years ago. The initiative was the first to qualify for the statewide ballot strictly through the efforts of unpaid volunteers – many of which were, and remain, proud members of MLF.  It also classified mountain lions as a “specially protected mammal” in California thus safe from being killed for fun, and created the Habitat Conservation Fund which acquires and protects habitat for all of California’s wildlife.

MLF staff enjoyed visiting Senator Pavely’s office in the capitol, posing for pictures, and casually chatting about the new mountain lion kittens in the Santa Monica Mountains.  Senator Pavley also mentioned that in her district, “the Habitat Conservation Fund has helped acquire land and protect habitat and native species in areas including Topanga Canyon, Franklin Canyon Park, and Malibu Creek State Park just to name a few.”

More than 2.2 million acres of wildlife habitat have been protected in California because of Proposition 117.  The resolution is, in part, the State’s way of saying thank you to MLF’s dedicated volunteers who helped gather signatures and promote the passage of the initiative all those years ago.  Because of their efforts to protect wildlife, the Resolution notes “California now has the unique status as the state with the largest human population coexisting with the largest number of mountain lions.”

To learn more about the Mountain Lion Foundation and the Resolution, visit MountainLion.org

Celebrate the American Lion this Independence Day weekend at the Folsom Zoo!

On Saturday, July 3rd, MLF Sacramento Volunteer Coordinator Lyn Whitcomb and her volunteer crew will be hosting an educational booth about mountain lions at the Folsom Zoo Sanctuary (Sacramento-area, California).  Visitors will have a chance to see lions up close and learn about MLF’s efforts to protect wild mountain lions and their habitat.  Bring the family for a fun day at the zoo and be sure to stop by the lion enclosure to say hi.

Interested in volunteering with MLF at this event?  Send an email to outreach@mountainlion.org for more details.

See you there!

Folsom Zoo Sanctuary

403 Stafford Street, Folsom, CA 95630

Saturday, July 3rd, Gates open at 9:00am

see admission fees