We've had a couple of similar cases in which mountain lions turned up on the grounds of shopping malls miles from the mountains here in Southern California. In both cases, sad to say, the lions were shot. However, both mountain lions and bears are having population explosions in this state and turning up in urban areas with increasing frequency. Coyotes (prairie wolves) are all over the cities in much of the country. Not far from here, they are frequently encountered lounging by swimming pools (seriously!).

Interesting, Shooey, that you should bring up a mountain lion in Oz. I've heard a lot of these reports, but nothing substantive ever turns up. I find it very hard to believe that American troops would be able lug mountains lions about during WWII, although there was a Free Polish unit that had a Syrian Brown Bear that went with them as a mascot and actually packed ammunition around for them in Italy. Getting back to Oz, there has been an interesting micro-evolution of feral domestic cats, some of which are attaining huge sizes, e.g., 60 pounds. While we're on it, Shooey, do you have any views about the Yowie (Australia's Sasquatch)?

As to the explosion of predators in California, mountain lions have been protected for over 40 years and their population has increased tenfold. The only natural predator of the mountain lion is the wolf, which we had exterminated in California by the early 1920s. With black bears, their population increase has been mostly due to lack of hunting pressure (recently abetted by the legislature, which just banned hound hunting for them) and also their claiming a lot of territory formerly occupied exclusively by the now-extinct California Grizzly.

Last edited by captainpreppy (2012-10-22 23:18:14)

Shooey, out of interest, do you read Graham Hancock's stuff?

Last edited by The_Shooman (2012-10-24 09:18:56)

Last edited by The_Shooman (2012-10-25 07:28:49)