The Palo Alto Police Department has been swamped with calls protesting their shooting of a mountain lion Monday.
The graphic footage -- captured exclusively by a CBS 5 camera -- showed what happened when the animal wandered too far into a neighborhood in the heart of the city. The mountain lion was discovered in a tree, and was shot and killed.
Concerned calls have been coming in from around the country, and one police captain called it the most vocal response to any officer involved shooting he's seen -- whether the victim was an animal or human.
One animal rights group says officers acted too quickly, and that the animal could have been spared if the department had been better prepared. Police say calls had been made for a tranquilizer gun, but they stand by their decision to kill the animal because they say it posed an immediate threat to public safety.
But even if a tranquilizer gun had been immediately available, Fish and Game officials said Tuesday that using it would not have been a safe option given the surroundings and the time it takes tranquilizers to work. Officials have conducted a necropsy to see if the animal's carcass can yield any clues as to how or why it wandered so far from open spaces where most of its natural prey lives.
The animal was a three-year-old male in good condition although slightly underweight. Officials say it could have been forced out of the wild by a more dominant male and probably followed a trail of food, water and shelter along San Francisquito or other creeks leading from the hills into town.
May 18 (ABC7) — Palo Alto police say they've received about 200 complaints after killing a mountain lion on Monday.
The cat roamed loose yesterday in a heavily populated area. Animal rights activists say the police should have tranquilized the mountain lion with a dart gun.
But police say a tranquilizer can take at least 20 minutes to take effect and didn't want to take the chance that the cat might run off and hurt someone in the meantime.
The Department of Fish and Game says the lion was a male, mildly thin, but in basically good health.
Let's see.
We've got a hungry carnivore loose in a heavily populated area. Mountain lions have attacked and killed people in the past. Cops shoot lion before it can kill.
Good job on the Palo Alto Police Department's part.
As for the animal rights loons, they're only reinforcing California's reputation as fruitcake central in the eyes of the rest of the country.
IMHO, you have to be a special kind of clueless to say that Mountain lions shouldn't be killed if they pose a danger to people.
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Glocksman wrote:IMHO, you have to be a special kind of clueless to say that Mountain lions shouldn't be killed if they pose a danger to people.
I'm sure if they could have arranged some time with a counselor and possibly some anti-depressents to combat stress it would have been fine.
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Glocksman wrote:IMHO, you have to be a special kind of clueless to say that Mountain lions shouldn't be killed if they pose a danger to people.
I'm sure if they could have arranged some time with a counselor and possibly some anti-depressents to combat stress it would have been fine.
It's a job for Counselor Deanna Troi.
Deanna - "I sense hunger, Captain."
Captain - "Thank You for stating the blindingly obvious, Counselor"
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Going out and actively killing them for no reason, maybe.
But if it's about to attack, you'd be a fool not to shoot because you sure as hell won't outrun it. It's lucky they even noticed it. Mountain lions usually use stealth get behind you and pounce. That first blow is your neck and then it's all over.
It might have been better if they had used a tranqulizer and relocated it, but I can understand not wanting to take chances. I live in this area and I take frequent hikes in the surrounding hills, so I always have to be aware of the threat of Mountain Lions and I have no wish to get mauled.
neoolong wrote:Yeah, I'd wonder what they'd say if it killed someone before they shot it.
I happen to know some only-in-California animal rights people, and they were going on and on about how barbaric it was to kill a bear that had killed a camper. The bear f--ing killed someone, and these people were saying, "so drug it and have it relocated. It's us who is encroaching on their territory!"
Only after it was pointed out that bears that eat people develop a taste for human flesh did they not consider it a crime to kill the bear. But they kept saying that the animal could still just be relocated. F--ing loons.
These people make me sick.
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The Kernel wrote:It might have been better if they had used a tranqulizer and relocated it, but I can understand not wanting to take chances. I live in this area and I take frequent hikes in the surrounding hills, so I always have to be aware of the threat of Mountain Lions and I have no wish to get mauled.
The tranqs were en route, but the thing started waking up, so the cops made the decision to shoot it. So I heard on KCBS.
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It's actually even worse than what you guys are reading. The tranqs hadn't arrived yet, AND there was a school within three blocks that was going to be letting out in less than 20 minutes. They waited for the tranqs, and finally decided to shoot it rather than risking it waking up and running off. If that happened, then the kids would be walking home from school with the police running around looking for a mountain lion. And these people DON'T think they should have killed it?
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Glocksman wrote:IMHO, you have to be a special kind of clueless to say that Mountain lions shouldn't be killed if they pose a danger to people.
I'm sure if they could have arranged some time with a counselor and possibly some anti-depressents to combat stress it would have been fine.
But....you see....its the stress that will make the Cougar attack.
(Some one has a 'Golden Age of SDnet' going, well the stressed out tiger was definately one of them)
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But as far as board culture in general, I do think that young male overaggression is a contributing factor to the general atmosphere of hostility. It's not SOS and the Mess throwing hand grenades all over the forum- Red
It is sad they had to shoot a magnificant animal like the California mountain lion, but they made the right call. While there is open space in Palo Alto on Stanford Universities land. This cat was pretty deep into a suburb. With the school being so close nearby it was better to be safe than sorry. Even if mountain lion attacks are extremely rare, a child walking home might have been seen as food. Although, this was Palo Alto, most of these kids get picked up by an Lexus SUV. Still, they made the right call.
