SANTA MONICA, Calif. - The legal shooting of a mountain lion in Camarillo last January sparked outrage among wildlife advocates but new protections could make legal killings of those animals a thing of the past.
The number of mountain lions roaming Southern California mountains is dwindling, with estimates as low as just a few hundred and the risk of extinction in as little as 12 years.
“Southern California and Central Coast mountain lions have been facing an extinction vortex due to loss of habitat and lack of wildlife connectivity,” said J.P. Rose, who is fighting to save mountain lions. He is an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Rose and other wildlife advocates were stunned when P-56, a four-year-old mountain lion, was legally trapped and shot to death. “It was incredibly tragic,” said Rose. “He was one of only two collared breeding males left in the Santa Monica Mountains.”
The National Park Service fitted P-56 with a radio collar to track him as part of a study on the animals’ behavior but the mountain lion killed 12 sheep and it cost him his life.
“We shouldn’t be killing imperiled native wildlife to accommodate livestock,” said Rose.
The livestock owner whose identity we are keeping anonymous because of death threats, told the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that they tried electric fencing, motion-activated lights and a guard dog, but the lion kept coming back. The owner also said they didn’t have enough indoor barn space. CDFW issued a depredation permit, allowing the animal to be shot.
Rose co-authored a petition to give more protections to mountain lions by adding them to the state’s endangered species list and at a hearing, urged CDFW to approve the petition.
In April, the commissioners voted unanimously to give mountain lions the protected status for a year while they determine if it should become permanent.
By law, a lethal depredation permit can still be issued for a mountain lion that repeatedly kills livestock but CDFW’s Jordan Traverso says the new protection means the chance of that happening is about zero.
My director is very serious about not seeing another one of these creatures killed unnecessarily,” she said.
Instead, CDFW would urge ranchers to seek help.
“The Mountain Lion Foundation and the Center for Biological Diversity have a great deal of resources about enclosures, about prevention techniques, things that will help these livestock owners not have the situations happen and really that’s what we’re striving for,” said Traverso.
It’s a victory for champions of mountain lions like J.P. Rose. “I see it as not just an ecological crisis, but a spiritual and cultural crisis,” he said.“Humans need nature and the loss of nature impoverishes us all.”
With this new protection, instead of being on the brink of extinction, Southern California mountain lions may now flourish.