Mountain lion kills California man in state’s first fatal attack in 20 years (lawyer, homes)

[DiffuseGlow]

Originally Posted by mattja

You might have a chance with a decent spear.

Assuming you have trained with and know how to properly wield a "decent spear."

[Veritas Vincit]

In this particular scenario, a gun would have almost certainly saved the kid's life. There might be scenarios where it wouldn't do much to change the outcome, but it does give you that option in case you do need it.

[ChrisMT]

You cannot legally carry a firearm that is loaded in California is what I have heard.

You can get a hunting license and carry a hunting rifle with a legal tag, but tags are not easy to come by. I think you can hunt some birds or rabbits with a loaded rifle, not sure if that caliber would be enough to take on a mountain lion.

By far the best option is bear spray, not even sure you can have that legally in California?

Grizzlies do not always respond to bear spray, probably too close and too late. Black bear are totally different, they run away from dogs, grizzly run at them and that gets people attacked in some of these encounters imo. Spray seems to work on mountain lions....so far....

Of course hunting and getting shot at by people scare wild animals, they remember....my neighbor just raises his arms into a rifle holding position at the coyotes behind his property and the coyotes duck and run.

If someone can have enough room and the senses about them, I have read of some who have poked the lion in the eyes until it released them :O, will you have the chance? More than likely, no. If just one of the men had not been injured they probably could have beat the lion enough with a log/stick/rock to release the other (a elderly woman did that to save her husband in California), but I just don't know, this was a very aggressive lion.

We have mountain lions hanging out in trees above where people park to go to a bar here...no kidding...they are around you out there they just don't attack most of the time, thank goodness. I think we have lost some of our fear of them in our modern world....

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

The last lion attack on a woman happened north of us, and she was saved by her dog, a Belgian Malinois. The dog survived the immediate attack but died later form the injuries.

Off-topic but there's a reason that dogs are man's best friends. They are undyingly loyal and they freed man up for better things than keeping eyes out for predators. This is an illustration.

[JGC97]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

The following is from the late evening edition of the Sacramento Bee. This wasn't a silent ambush. Unfortunately they didn't carry a suitable weapon, a gun or at least a machete.

There was a follow-up story last night on the news. Very tragic hearing the events that occurred. The younger of the two brothers is in the hospital and will recover and authorities euthanized the mountain lion. As they should. Just hope PITA doesn't come along and raise a ruckus over that.

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by JGC97

There was a follow-up story last night on the news. Very tragic hearing the events that occurred. The younger of the two brothers is in the hospital and will recover and authorities euthanized the mountain lion. As they should. Just hope PITA doesn't come along and raise a ruckus over that.

Yes, they had no choice in this case. That attack was both totally unprovoked and VERY aggressive. Few mountain lions would choose to attack two adult male humans, especially after the cat knew it had been spotted and had lost the advantage of surprise and the humans were assuming an aggressively defensive posture. NO WAY could that animal be left roaming around free to potentially attack others!

I posted this in a DM exchange with mgforshort, who has encouraged me to make it public. So here you go:

The typical cat involved in this sort of unprovoked attack is either a young wanderer who has been pushed into marginal habitat while in search of a territory of his own and is starving because there's not much prey available and he's not yet a skilled hunter, or an older cat which is either injured or suffering from the ravages of advanced age and CAN'T successfully catch normal prey any longer (like P-22 in Los Angeles, who started coming into suburbia and hunting leashed chihuahuas; he was 12, suffering from arthritis, and had serious injuries sustained from being hit by a car, so he could no longer catch the prey in Griffith Park which had sustained him for most of his life). Desperation drives cats to desperate measures, just like it does people.

This sad case is so atypical in how it went down that it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it turns out that the lion was rabid. There have been a few attacks by rabid bobcats over the past few years (one, in Texas, was caught by a security camera and made national news), and they all looked like this. The cat just rushes up and starts savagely attacking.

Bobcats weigh up to 40 lbs pounds. I can't imagine what it would be like to face an attack like that from a cat that can weigh up to 200 lbs!

Whatever the cause, we are lucky that attacks like these are very, very rare. If they were not, mountain lions would have no future in North America.

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

Yes, they had no choice in this case. That attack was both totally unprovoked and VERY aggressive. Few mountain lions would choose to attack two adult male humans, especially after the cat knew it had been spotted and had lost the advantage of surprise and the humans were assuming an aggressively defensive posture. NO WAY could that animal be left roaming around free to potentially attack others!

Are liberated "pets" likely attackers?

[Aredhel]

Originally Posted by jbgusa

Are liberated "pets" likely attackers?

Possibly, as they will certainly lack hunting skills and they won't be afraid of people. But there's no reason to think that this particular cat was an escaped pet. There are a LOT of mountain lions in the more rural parts of California (and throughout the western US; only Kansas and Oklahoma currently lack a breeding population). If you go hiking or camping in the wild places in those states there's a very good chance that at some point a lion was watching you and you just never knew it. Heck, they often pass through large cities on their travels! We didn't know just how often until Ring doorbells and home security cameras showed us the truth.

I also fully expect lions to make a return to the eastern half of the US eventually. There's plenty of suitable habitat in upstate New York, New England, and the Appalachians; it's just a matter of enough cats making it there to re-establish a breeding population (as coyotes have done). THAT will be interesting, to say the least!

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by Aredhel

I also fully expect lions to make a return to the eastern half of the US eventually. There's plenty of suitable habitat in upstate New York, New England, and the Appalachians; it's just a matter of enough cats making it there to re-establish a breeding population (as coyotes have done). THAT will be interesting, to say the least!

They may have already. One was killed on a Connecticut highway.

As for coyotes, the ones in the East are very large and sometimes hunt in packs. They appear to either be evolving into proto-wolves or may have some wolf hybridization.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by gofunme

If they were armed then chances are they both would be alive. It being California, the news outlets would have made a big deal about being armed and still attacked. I have read numerous different sources on this story and none of those sources said anything about being armed. I was not there, so not sure about it. What makes you think they might have been armed?

They were unarmed because they didn't want to deal with the fallout from CA Fish and Wildlife.

They could have been armed but chose not to. California is anti-gun but in this case, they could have legally been armed but just didn't for fear that Fish and Wildlife might think they were trying to poach turkeys without hunting tags, since it was the first day of Junior Turkey season.


The family said the brothers had gone out Saturday in search of deer antler sheds — a pastime they did together frequently in the spring before the grass grew too tall to see the shed antlers. That day was also the start of junior turkey hunting season, so the brothers chose not take any firearms with them to avoid attention from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Too bad they didn't at least carry good sharp knives on their belts. Not much, but better than fingernails.

Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/ar...#storylink=cpy