This Northern California mountain lion is a serial killer — of horses
ALTURAS — It has been 10 days since he killed here, but the smell of death still fills the air.
Pieces of the wild horse are left scattered among the dirt and grass. A red rib, not yet sun-bleached, lies in the dirt. A vertebra of spine over by a sage bush. Tufts of the horse’s dark mane sit among the black and brown lava rocks. Coyotes, vultures and bobcats have already been here, picking through the killer’s leftovers.
Less than 300 feet away, a herd of wild horses grazes, unfazed by the proximity to the dismembered 10-month-old foal.
Prowling a home range of about 386 square miles is an adult male mountain lion known as M166. In the last year, while his feline counterparts have feasted mainly on deer, this cougar has garnered a reputation as a horse killer par excellence.
Local ranchers who believe this part of rural Modoc County has too many wild horses for the local ecology must, grudgingly, tip their hats to the mountain lion. They wish more of the area’s cougars had a gift for mowing down horses.
It might alleviate the messier issues that come whenever humans have to get involved.
“It’s kind of a split decision around here,” said Teri Brown, owner of the only feed store in town, Modoc Farm Supply. “A lot of people who have lived here their entire lives, they’ve never seen populations like this — both of horses and of mountain lions — and both make them uncomfortable.”
For the last few weeks, a helicopter has whirred above Modoc National Forest in an effort to gather 1,000 of the estimated 4,000 wild horses that live in the Devil’s Garden. Experts found that the 258,000 acres of the forest where the horses live can sustain no more than 402 horses without significant damage to the ecosystem and to the horses themselves. The effort has spawned complaints and lawsuits.
Even in a part of California with one of the densest cougar populations, M166 can only do so much. He has killed more than 30 horses since June of 2017. At the scene of one of the killings, he also killed a beaver. At another, a dove.
“This lion, he is just wired for horse,” said David Garcelon, president of the Institute for Wildlife Studies, which is collaring and researching cougars in Northern California. “It was one of those things where you go in the first time, and it’s ‘Oh my gosh, he’s taken a horse — look at this,’ and everyone is calling each other and you’re shooting pictures, and the next time, he’s taken two horses now, and pretty soon, you’re like ‘Everything he takes is a horse.’ One after another after another.”
Experts wowed by the mountain lion’s prowess at hunting horses say they only wish M166 was a she instead of a he.
“If it was a female, we’d be really excited because she’d be teaching her youngsters how to do that as well,” Garcelon said. “For a male, they come in do their business with their lady friend, and that’s usually the last of their involvement. It’s the female and what they feed on that helps the youngsters learn what they’re going to be killing and going after.”
The plan to reduce the horse population has been controversial. It has led to multiple lawsuits by wild horse advocates who say the U.S. Forest Service is ignoring science in favor of cattle ranchers. Many argue that the forest should use fertility control on mares and, when needed, smaller gathers that use bait trap, instead of helicopter roundups.
“In the big picture, the Forest Service got here from a basic failure to manage the horses for years, and now they’re trying to deal with that, and they’re choosing the wrong path,” said Suzanne Roy, director of the American Wild Horse Campaign, which has sued over the management plan and the October gather. “These mass roundups are not only cruel — they also don’t work.”
Horse advocates say that the idea that the wild horses hurt the land ignores the thousands of cattle and sheep that graze on Modoc’s public lands every year.
Some argue that, instead of horse gathers, just let nature run its course — such as letting mountain lions take care of the problem.