Mountain lions "losing fear of man"?

[jryoung]

With the recent fatal mountain lion attack here in CA has many of the California hunting pages on FB filled with comments regarding them “losing their fear of man” because there is no hunting of them.

When I think about this statistically, it doesn’t make sense, and to me it’s just our anthropocentric interpretation of wildlife behavior.

In California Governor Reagan signed a mountain lion hunting moratorium in 1971, which was extended until 1991 when prop 117 was passed. So we have 53 years of no hunting, a population increase of 19 million people (20.3m -> 39.8M), continued loss of habitat yet no marked increase in attacks. Further, at first glance, states with regulated hunting have in general the same number of attacks that we have over the past 3 decades. Surely, if I dug into those numbers they’d be at a much higher rate per capita compared to California.

Certainly all animals have a natural fear of threats, elk and deer adapt to pressure which at its core is just an increase in human activity in their habitat. Conversely, they’ll also adapt and live closer to humans on the WUI type edges. I can understand animals adapting, but if mountain lions have “lost their fear of man” due to no hunting, shouldn’t there be an increase in attacks?

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

I think they just don't see humans as prey, they have have "lost their fear of man" but I think the result is being more comfortable in suburbia and ignoring humans rather than fleeing immediately.

African lions kill more people in a year than have been killed by lions in the last 150 years or whenever we started keeping track.

 

[Moserkr]

My friend just mentioned the lion in the recent CA attack was a 90lb male, young and healthy. We live in the county of the attack and both have family and friends within miles of where it occurred.

My friend and I also discussed the low number of attacks and deaths attributed to lions. Theres a lot of missing people in national forests that could have been killed by lions, but thats just our opinion. The recorded vs actual number could be quite different and we will never truly know.

Are mountain lions losing their fear of man? Absolutely. I live 5 minutes from where my wife grew up. When she was a young teenager, a lion killed their house cat on their front porch in front of the whole family. Her parents still live there and mountain lions walk through the neighborhood and their yard frequently.

Even if we could hunt lions, these neighborhood lions would never lose their fear of man because theres no hunting in that area. We just learn to live with them, and they are a largely unseen threat that rarely materializes.

 

[QuazyQuinton]

I think it's pretty hard to argue that an individual animal's behavior is changed by a lack of hunting. I think it's reasonable to assume that an increasing animal population leads to more frequent encounters with humans out "in the wild" and also leads to more animals moving to live in close proximity to humans, thus increasing the chances of conflict. Also, don't forget that news travels faster in the Facebook age, so people know (some things) more than they used to.

Lots of moving parts if one was to try to nail down cause and effect.

QQ

 

[Doublecluck]

Idk but I had a couple strange encounters when I hunted d-15. Most memorable was hunting the edge of a burn in archery season, FS had done burns as fire breaks along the ridges. Couple hundreds yards wide. Deer frequented those burns. I was about half mile from the truck, cat casually walks out of the jungle stops dead center in the trail and sits down in the middle of the trail. Looks at me like a giant house cat and licks its upper lip. I yell a few times and it casually walks back in to the jungle. Given it was California and I couldn’t carry a firearm in archery, I started back toward the truck, came to full draw as I passed the spot it entered, it was just a few yards inside but didn’t come after me. I knew the statistics on getting attacked but I can tell you that didn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy walking back to my truck that evening. Not long after that and not far away a jogger was eaten and OC sheriffs dept got to use their cool infrared and a deputy got to light the lion that ate that girl up off the skid of a chopper while it was hiding only a few yards away from deputies and the body. Another time we were turkey hunting down near Julian and one came after the decoy. It didn’t exactly run off when the humans with shotguns made themselves known.

I’ve run across two cats in Montana, both near the same place and they wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.

 

[TOGIE]

when folks learn Reagan was an anti hunting commie

 

[Doublecluck]

when folks learn Reagan was an anti hunting commie

View attachment 320326

old news! You will have a hard time finding someone you agree with on everything. Still one of my favorite presidents. In general politicians should stay out of wildlife management. Case in point Montana mule deer or California mountain lions. Same chit.

 

[jryoung]

when folks learn Reagan was an anti hunting commie

View attachment 320326

It's amazing the number of people that are in complete denial that he signed the moratorium when presented with references.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

If I were to make a semi informed guess. I would say this graph shows a dynamic that has resulted in lions (who are territorial) have been forced into closer proximity with areas of higher human traffic, and they have become desensitized to humans and the urban interface resulting in more interactions with people and thus more opportunity for things to go pear-shaped....


***the source of the graph is the CA Fish and Wildlife Mountain Lion population study published in 2020. https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=175911&inline

 

[FairWeather]

There’s a guy on YT that I’ve seen a few videos from, and their whole shtick is that they exclusively hunt predators, in an attempt to reinstate the fear of humans in them.

I don’t think it’s going to have the effect he hopes it does, but it doesn’t hurt to remove a few from the landscape regardless. Especially since he seems to mostly be hunting cats that have been seen stalking around people’s property. Take them out before they do become a problem sort of thing.

 

[Bigjay73]

I think most human deaths by animal attack are due to humans being the best option for a meal at the time, fear or no fear.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

There’s a guy on YT that I’ve seen a few videos from, and their whole shtick is that they exclusively hunt predators, in an attempt to reinstate the fear of humans in them.

I don’t think it’s going to have the effect he hopes it does, but it doesn’t hurt to remove a few from the landscape regardless. Especially since he seems to mostly be hunting cats that have been seen stalking around people’s property. Take them out before they do become a problem sort of thing.

I think they do the same in WA. harassing cats into staying away from livestock. I think they use paintball guns and the like.

 

[npaden]

I think the "fear of man" theory is pretty difficult to articulate in a way that holds much water. It's not like mountain lions or grizzly bears are sitting around the water cooler "hey did you hear ol Tom got shot last week, I guess I need to start staying clear of that area now, those 2 legged critters are slow but they carry those sticks that go boom".

Unless hunters are terrible shots, the animals are going to be dead before they learn to be fearful.

I think with the increase in population, both humans and predators, as well as encroachment into what used to be prime habitat but is now a bunch of suburban houses it really is amazing that there are not exponentially more encounters.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

I think the "fear of man" theory is pretty difficult to articulate in a way that holds much water. It's not like mountain lions or grizzly bears are sitting around the water cooler "hey did you hear ol Tom got shot last week, I guess I need to start staying clear of that area now, those 2 legged critters are slow but they carry those sticks that go boom".

Unless hunters are terrible shots, the animals are going to be dead before they learn to be fearful.

I think with the increase in population, both humans and predators, as well as encroachment into what used to be prime habitat but is now a bunch of suburban houses it really is amazing that there are not exponentially more encounters.

I don't think it is a individual lion thing, other than when a young male gets kick out of the area and is forced into less than ideal place. I think it is a generational thing, aggregated experiences and learned over time.

 

[Bigjay73]

I think the "fear of man" theory is pretty difficult to articulate in a way that holds much water. It's not like mountain lions or grizzly bears are sitting around the water cooler "hey did you hear ol Tom got shot last week, I guess I need to start staying clear of that area now, those 2 legged critters are slow but they carry those sticks that go boom".

Unless hunters are terrible shots, the animals are going to be dead before they learn to be fearful.

I think with the increase in population, both humans and predators, as well as encroachment into what used to be prime habitat but is now a bunch of suburban houses it really is amazing that there are not exponentially more encounters.

Animals don't know the difference between a gun shot and thunder, they dont even know what death is. I was always under the assumption that either the sound of an animal getting hit, or animals reacting to an animal that has been hit and is flailing, or running off causes other animals to run. Just a theory

 

[FairWeather]

I think they do the same in WA. harassing cats into staying away from livestock. I think they use paintball guns and the like.

This particular YTer lives in south-central WA I believe, that’s how I found him. I only hunt in Oregon, so only care to watch content from the PNW as hunting anywhere else is pretty irrelevant to me.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

This particular YTer lives in south-central WA I believe, that’s how I found him. I only hunt in Oregon, so only care to watch content from the PNW as hunting anywhere else is pretty irrelevant to me.

Bart George?

 

[sapperJ24]

My friend just mentioned the lion in the recent CA attack was a 90lb male, young and healthy. We live in the county of the attack and both have family and friends within miles of where it occurred.

My friend and I also discussed the low number of attacks and deaths attributed to lions. Theres a lot of missing people in national forests that could have been killed by lions, but thats just our opinion. The recorded vs actual number could be quite different and we will never truly know.

Are mountain lions losing their fear of man? Absolutely. I live 5 minutes from where my wife grew up. When she was a young teenager, a lion killed their house cat on their front porch in front of the whole family. Her parents still live there and mountain lions walk through the neighborhood and their yard frequently.

Even if we could hunt lions, these neighborhood lions would never lose their fear of man because theres no hunting in that area. We just learn to live with them, and they are a largely unseen threat that rarely materializes.

Mountain lions hanging around communities and stalking people in the national forest isn't excusive to California or in areas where hunting is not occurring.

Most of the lions I've seen in Montana didn't stick around for a prolonged observation, but I've also seen some that didn't seem to care that we were right there. I've also been stalked once by a subadult cat in an area with active hunting and where hunters run dogs. One of my friends had a housecat nabbed off her porch by young lions and a dog get into it with lions another time as well.

Seems more a probability of interactions as more people and more animals sharing a landscape and less of a 'losing their fear' thing to me.

 

[jryoung]

I don't think it is a individual lion thing, other than when a young male gets kick out of the area and is forced into less than ideal place. I think it is a generational thing, aggregated experiences and learned over time.

My guess is that's what got this cat in trouble, he was a young male, likely forced into the area where he got into trouble.


Their movements/territories are fascinating. In the link below, click the box for 66M on the right hand side and then slide the toggle at the top. From 2015 to Christmas week 2018 he was almost exclusively north of the county line in Santa Clara, then suddenly he moves south into Santa Cruz county. Was he forced because a more dominate male moved in? Or did an opportunity open because a dominate male moved out in Santa Cruz county?

Puma Tracker | Santa Cruz Puma Project

www.santacruzpumas.org

 

[jryoung]

Bart George?

Bart is in NE Washington IIRC.