Sickening news this morning...

Naturalist defends mountain lion killing
Public safety, poor success in relocations cited by Palo Alto naturalist Deborah Bartens

by Jay Thorwaldson
Palo Alto Weekly Staff

City Naturalist Deborah Bartens defended the Palo Alto Police Department?s decision to shoot the errant mountain lion that wandered into a stately residential area of northern Palo Alto.

?Oh yeah, knowing other case histories of similar incidents, I don?t think they had any other choice,? said Bartens, a 23-veteran of city wildlife management, including both the baylands and Foothills Park, where lions normally roam.

In a Thursday interview, Bartens noted the city was in telephone consultation with state Department of Fish & Game lion experts as well as with Interim Chief Bruce Cumming in Morgan Hill about three lion incursions into residential areas in the past year.

Even had it been safe to tranquilize the lion with a dart, the record of relocation of lions is extremely poor, she said.

?The relocation failure rate is in the 90s,? she said, citing the percentage of failures based on radio-collar tracking of relocated lions, meaning the animals die within the first year.

The high mortality is often due to run-ins with older dominant males whose turf they?ve found themselves in and they also don?t know the terrain or food sources, she said.

In cases where there is no dominant male nearby, relocated lions have been known to track down female lions with cubs and kill the cubs, Bartens said.

While relocation of some species works well, with lions it often causes ?devastating ripple effects,? Bartens said.

Police Chief Lynne Johnson said the department did have a tranquilizer-dart gun available, but the decision to shoot the lion was made in the morning after consulting with others knowledgeable about lions and the use of tranquilizer darts.

The department has come under intense criticism for the shooting, receiving hundreds of e-mails and phone calls from across the nation, and some from other countries, protesting the shooting. More favorable responses started coming in later in the week, department officials reported.

Criticism also shifted to the adequacy of neighborhood notification after the lion was sighted before 6 a.m. Monday. It was shot about 1 p.m. while about 30 feet up in a camphor tree at the corner of Walnut and Walter Hays drives, a block from the main library in the Community Center neighborhood.

She said in addition to the public-safety factors there was real concern about losing the lion if it started running after being hit with a tranquilizer dart -- as it could jump high fences easily and could be difficult or impossible to track.

Even shot by a high-powered rifle slug through both lungs and falling 30 feet, the cat managed to dash about 30 feet before running under a bush and collapsing.

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