A mountain lion led Morgan Hill police on an excursion through
neighborhoods and grasslands on Tuesday afternoon, but escaped
without incident into the open fields west of the city.
A mountain lion led Morgan Hill police on an excursion through neighborhoods and grasslands on Tuesday afternoon, but escaped without incident into the open fields west of the city.
A woman who lived at 1180 Appian Way spotted the big cat lying in brush behind her house off Sunnyside Avenue just after 1 p.m. The neighborhood is at the edge of open space that runs along Sycamore Avenue and out to Oak Glen Avenue, Armsby Lane and the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Police were called to the scene and notified residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Lt. Terrie Booten said the mountain lion showed no aggressiveness but, nevertheless, was a worry.
“Officers went door to door because our concern was to notify the public,” said Booten.
Police swept the open field below and behind the Appian Way houses, checked up in trees and met county sheriff’s deputies who were coming in from the west, also looking for the cat.
“The cat was last seen heading west,” Booten said.
This was just the latest in a series of big cat sightings on both sides of the valley.
Two weeks ago a Jackson Oaks woman came face to face with a mountain lion near her Circle Drive house while out searching for a lost dog. Other Jackson Oaks and Holiday Lake Estates residents reported seeing mountain lions and finding deer carcasses in their yards. The areas are in the city’s east hills.
Mayor Dennis Kennedy said he received a letter from neighbors of the Jackson Oaks woman on Thursday asking him to do something to protect people and pets.
“The letter raises issues to investigate,” Kennedy said. “We’ll take whatever action we need to take.”
He said he would refer the letter to the city manager and the chief of police.
In March, three teenage mountain lions were found in a backyard near Hale and Llagas Avenues next to Shadow Mountain School on the west side of the city. One escaped and was hit and killed by a car, a second had to be killed by police when it tried to get into the house, but a third was captured and released into the hills.
Mountain lion experts say the animals’ increasing presence in residential areas is caused by new construction pushing further into mountain lion territory. This leaves the big cats little choice but to forage for food where it can be found, which is occasionally in people’s back yards.
By encouraging fawns and deer with salt licks and water troughs, residents of near-wild areas make their neighborhoods more attractive to lions, since lions feed on deer.
Pets in backyards and wandering loose also draw the big cats as the wild and the tame attempt to share the same territory.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office recently rehired veteran fish and game warden Henry Coletto as its mountain lion expert. Proposition 117, passed in 1990, forbids killing of mountain lions in California unless they are declared a public safety threat.
It has, in the past been unusual for mountain lions to be seen during daylight hours. They normally hunt for deer during dawn and dusk, spending the days in hiding.
As far as advice, Booten said: “Give them an avenue of escape. Don’t back them into a corner.”
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
