[This is a wee bit gruesome for those who don’t need to hear about, or see, nature in the raw]
My brother has a few acres. He’s taken to raising alpacas. A baby alpaca was born a few months ago.
A couple of weeks ago, the baby disappeared from the fenced enclosure. Nobody was quite sure what happened. Theft was the likely suspect.
But a week ago one of the adults similarly disappeared, and one of the remaining adults had a bite mark on its neck.
Looked like a mountain lion.
My brother lives not too awfully far from San Diego’s Wild Animal Park (since renamed), and there have been big cat sightings in the area over the last few years. I think the Park has even lost some animals to the cats.
My brother and my nephew started going for long hikes, eventually finding one carcass, not yet … uh … cleaned out.
They bought a trail cam and left it there for a day or two. This is what the camera caught:
My brother and his family are sad about the 1-1/2 alpacas, but they’re truly animal lovers and were mesmerized by the big cat’s photo.
I was, too.
Mundane … pointless thing … I simply had to share.
Meow.
[The fenced enclosures are being finished (with a roof) and further secured as we speak]
I live about 20 minutes south of the Wild Animal Park, in a suburb but there are open spaces between some of the housing blocks.
This news item came up on Nextdoor: Large mountain lion spotted in Poway | cbs8.com
This is about 4 blocks from my house - I have walked the dog past this lady’s house numerous times (but never at 3am). So you don’t need to be that far out in the “country” to have such visitors !
There are a handful of people who raise alpacas in the area. And I’ve heard they also have large dogs to help keep the various predators (coyotes and bobcats, too) away.
I have family in Laguna Beach. They used to go out to some of the open land along the canyon and hike with their dogs running free. There’s also a nature park somewhere nearby there where they did the same thing. A couple years ago while hiking they found fresh mountain lion tracks not far from where they’d left their car. The dogs don’t run free anymore.
Plenty of big cats about despite being literally surrounded by ordinary high density suburbia.
Brother had been talking, for years, about building Mom a casita on his property. This mountain lion thing thoroughly tanked the idea for her. She’s unwilling to put herself in a position where walking out her front door might expose her to that kind of danger.
My wife and I made a conscious decision not to tell her … exactly what you’re saying: that there are mountain lions in her current neighborhood, too.
[Though we have often advised her not to ever go hiking alone in these beautiful areas]
When we moved to the Rockies, my wife would let the dog run off leash, where it’s allowed (in the mountains and forests). I quickly convinced her that it wasn’t a good idea. No end of stuff in these parts understands just how delicious Sam would be
ETA: what we’re talking about may or may not be precisely correct vis-a-vis Laguna Beach:
But I think that’s splitting hairs … where my mother is concerned
It is a beautiful thing when Dopers live up to their screen names
Dunno’ what he was selling the wool for, but a quick Google showed me that a simple cria throw is $375.
Yikes.
That pic reminds me of the old saying: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for lunch.”
Apparently, my brother now has help from “California Dept of Fish and Wildlife, the Cougar Conservancy and someone from the Safari Park too.”
There was a similar story out of the Malibu area a couple years back. Apparently, the cat being given a death sentence mobilized a few conservation agencies and resulted in a win-win-win situation.
We’re hoping for similar.
But … yeah … as a former San Diegan I have to imagine that – to the cat and the vulture – my brother’s alpacas were like a 2:00 AM drive-thru burrito joint after a couple of beers: truly Holy Grail stuff.
The cria yarn I’ve seen goes for about $14-16 for a 100 yd. skein, and the average adult sweater takes about 1600-2400 yd. depending on yarn weight, so that adds up to pretty expensive
We get mountain lion sightings on the outskirts of Tucson, usually in the north, the Foothills area. My hotel had a verified mountain lion sighting on property about 6 weeks ago; my security guard saw it.
We have tons of bobcats here in Tucson, and more than a few guests have assumed those are mountain lions.
