Thursday, January 8, 2004
Timeline of mountain lion attacks in O.C.
Before today, the most significant incidents in Orange County involving mountain lions occurred in 1986 when two children were mauled at Caspers Wilderness Park in separate incidents. In March of that year, 5-year-old Laura Small was mauled, the first attack in California in 77 years. The park was briefly closed. In October, Justin Mellon, 6, was mauled by a lion. The park was closed to children in 1992 after the Small family won a $1.5 million lawsuit against the county. The park was reopened to children in 1995.
Some other incidents involving mountain lions in recent years:
• September 2003: A mountain lion was sighted twice at the Ortega Equestrian Center in San Juan Capistrano, leading state Fish and Game officers to trap and kill the animal in early October.
• August 2003: A mountain lion was suspected when a small dog was attacked in its backyard in Nellie Gail Ranch. The dog had to be put to sleep.
• February 2003: Whiting Ranch Wildnerness Park was closed for 24 hours after a mountain lion was sighted by three different people in one day – a jogger, a biker and a ranger.
• January 2003: A 90-pound mountain lion was shot and killed by a Silverado Canyon resident after he found it attacking two of his goats.
• May 2002: U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists reported a highly unusual sighting of a mountain lion in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park.
• February 2001: Two mountain lion sightings at Gen. Thomas F. Riley Wilderness Park prompted warnings to students at Wagon Wheel Elementary School from the principal.
• April 1998: A Villa Park woman found a mountain lion standing on her porch after she heard a bang on her screen door. Animal control officers responded and killed the cat after it charged them.
• December 1997: An aggressive female mountain lion charged a group of women and children at Caspers Wilderness Park. No one was injured and the lion retreated after one of the women threw a child's hiking boot at it. A state game warden later shot and killed the lion.
- Compiled by researchers Michael Rosentreter and Michael Doss