As human populations expand in to historical mountain lion habitat, there will be more human-lion encounters. This will happen especially with young and inexperienced lions that most of the time “lose their way” and end up in a residential area. Or with lions in rural/wildland fringe areas where people have created free-food opportunities for them to take advantage of, by not practicing good animal husbandry with 4H animals and livestock.
To date, every lion that has had the misfortune of ending up close to human habitation has been killed. While it is important to ensure human safety, there are alternate, more effective ways these situations could have been and can be handled, that would ensure human safety and not require the killing of any (young) lions, which will ultimately have an impact on the lion population and the local ecology.
Little Blue Society has designed a first-response protocal to help municipalities deal safely and effectively with mountain lion encounters.
The municipalities and City/County Departments that have been trained on this protocal to date, are as follows:
- Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department
- Gilroy Police Department
- Morgan Hill Police Department
- San Jose Police Department
- City of San Jose Park Rangers
- Santa Clara County Park Rangers
- Mid-peninsula Open Sapce Agency
To set up a training class in your area:
Contact mary@littlebluesociety.org or call usToll Free at (866) 702-9290 Little Blue Society also partners with cities, counties, neighborhood associations to present an interactive forum, to educate the public about mountain lions and the most recent methods for avoiding conflicts, and safely using parks and open space areas where lions are present.
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