On July 3, a 19-year-old in Arroyo Grande, California, suffered a minor concussion after he was attacked by what he claims was a mountain lion. After conducting an investigation, nevertheless, wildlife officers say forensic proof factors to one thing a lot much less intimidating: an odd home cat.
The teenager, whose identification has not been launched, advised officers in his preliminary report that he was driving a dust bike when an animal dropped from a tree and almost ripped him off the bike. In an interview with The Tribune, he alleged one thing grabbed his helmet, ripped him backward, and nearly knocked him out simply as he revved the throttle to get “out of there.”
“Initially, I did see one thing in regards to the measurement of a canine — a big canine — drop from the tree and barely miss me,” stated the teenager, who later returned to the scene to see if one thing else might need fallen on him. “There was nothing I may have hit my head on. No tree had fallen.”
After receiving the teenager’s preliminary report, California Division of Fish and Wildlife legislation enforcement officers launched an investigation. They interviewed the sufferer and picked up DNA samples for lab testing.
Capt. Patrick Foy, with CDFW’s enforcement division, tells Outside Life that the proof they collected didn’t help the teenager’s declare of almost being mauled by an apex predator.
“Our investigation, together with interviews, assortment of proof within the type of clothes the reporting occasion was sporting, and forensic evaluation of that proof, didn’t verify the presence of a mountain lion,” Foy says. He didn’t make clear whether or not investigators searched the scene of the alleged assault for extra clues.
What the investigation did reveal, he says, was DNA from Felis catus, a home cat. Regardless, the sufferer is sticking to his story.
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The teenager advised reporters in a follow-up interview that he has a pet cat at dwelling, which may clarify the DNA they discovered on his helmet and clothes. He additionally stated that the evident absence of mountain lion DNA in CDFW’s forensic testing was as a result of the cougar “barely grabbed onto the again of my helmet and ripped me again.”
“The reporting occasion has a home cat, so it was not a shock,” says Foy, including that CDFW continues to take the incident critically.
“We’ve been intently monitoring our Wildlife Incident Reporting (WIR) database to see if others locally have reported seeing a mountain lion,” Foy says. “That’s detrimental up to now.”
Mountain Lion assaults on people are extraordinarily uncommon. Solely 24 confirmed mountain lion assaults on people have been reported in California since 1984, with most assaults occurring on younger youngsters. In line with the CDFW, “an individual is 1,000 instances extra prone to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion.”
However with almost half of those confirmed assaults occurring throughout the previous decade, evidently conflicts with people are on the rise in California. In March, two brothers had been attacked and one was killed by a mountain lion whereas they had been shed looking close to El Dorado Nationwide Forest. Taylen Brooks, 21, died after wrestling the lion off his 18-year-old brother.
This marked the Golden State’s first deadly mountain lion assault in 20 years, and the tragedy has led Taylen’s uncle, Malcom Brooks, to name for modifications to California’s insurance policies round lion administration. He joins a rising variety of hunters and rural California residents who suppose the state ought to convey again cougar looking in some type — or not less than discover some solution to make mountain lions much less comfy round people.
“We’re actually enjoying with hearth, and what occurred to Taylen and Wyatt might nicely find yourself being the tip of the iceberg,” Brooks stated. “Work out a solution to make pursuit permits a chance for individuals who have lion hounds. Put strain on this inhabitants. Get them to de-habituate from human inhabitants zones.”
Tough estimates put the statewide cougar inhabitants at between 4,000 and 6,000 cats. In line with CDFW, the inhabitants is “thought of secure based mostly on the most effective scientific information, analysis, and strategies accessible.” Regardless of the abundance of those cats, nevertheless, California wildlife managers have one much less device of their toolbox as a result of state’s legal guidelines defending mountain lions
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The state hasn’t hosted a mountain lion hunt since 1972, and the feline predators had been reclassified as a “specifically protected mammal” when Golden State voters handed the California Wildlife Safety Act in 1990. The brand new legal guidelines made it “illegal to take, injure, possess, transport, import, or promote a mountain lion or a product of a mountain lion.” (Underneath the legislation, lions mounted by taxidermists, even when they had been taken in one other state, are unlawful to own in California.)
And since many Californians care deeply about defending the state’s mountain lions, issuing dramatic shows of public grief when a 12-year-old city cougar was euthanized after being struck by a automobile, the possibilities of state coverage being overturned by public vote is an extended shot.
Nonetheless, some might rethink their stance if mountain lions begin repeatedly falling from timber.