We greatly regret to report that mountain lion P15 (called Jupiter) was shot February 9, 2019, four days after he was collared as part of Living with Lions, a CDFW-permitted study trying to understand the movement and behavior of these top carnivores of the North Bay region.
P15 was a 13-month-old male lion recently dispersed from his mom, who is most likely P4, a female big cat also being tracked by the study. On February 4, the uncollared cat attacked an unsecured goat in the Mt. Veeder area of Napa County. After connecting with CDFW, law enforcement and wildlife rescue organizations, the landowner contacted ACR to have the cat collared for research instead of killed under a depredation permit.
“Honestly, it changed my feeling about the whole process,” the goat’s owner, Patricia Damery, told a reporter from the Press Democrat. “He did what lions do. He killed game, and it was my fault for having that goat out, but also he was such a beautiful lion. … It was about being in the beauty of nature there.”
At some point after Feb 5, P15 killed 2 sheep over consecutive nights at a nearby property. On the third night, the landowner shot the cat when he returned. The landowners had reached out to CDFW but apparently did not have a secure option for their sheep in place before the cat made a return visit.
We are deeply saddened by the loss of (another) one our study animal and also the unnecessary trauma on the landowner’s animals.
Quinton Martins, the director of Living with Lions, received the news from a concerned neighbor and wanted to reiterate that we, as a community, need to understand that ALL PREDATORS will kill unprotected pets or livestock. It is 100% our responsibility to take care of our pets and livestock before conflict occurs. Killing the wild predator is not an effective or reasonable long-term strategy for properly managing pets or livestock.
Residents in rural and semi-rural areas of the northern San Francisco Bay area live in mountain lion territory. Contrary to popular notion, mountain lions are not traveling through an area on a seasonal or annual basis, they reside in the oak woodlands and conifer forests of the North Bay. Although they are rarely seen by, and avoid, humans, they move about us regularly.
Please join us in our effort to broadcast a hopeful and determined message of coexistence with wildlife through predator-proofing domestic animal enclosures. Sonoma County supervisors: look to our Marin neighbors for non-lethal predator management program. Small flock owners: reach out to Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue to learn more about secure housing options. Livestock owners who have a conflict with a mountain lion: PLEASE CALL ACR FIRST at 707-721-6560 – before opting for a depredation permit. email: mountain [email protected]
More information on the project is available at egret.org/living-with-lions
