Mountain lion spotted near Peppermint Creek worries residents
Some residents in the Peppermint Creek area in Jamestown are concerned about recent mountain lion sightings and fatal attacks on pets and small livestock they believe are connected to an aggressive mountain lion.
A mountain lion, a pit bull, or some other predatory animal attacked and wounded two rams weighing about 200 pounds each early Tuesday on property belonging to Randy Hass, 63, a resident for more than 20 years of Peppermint Falls Road off Rawhide Road, Hass and his neighbors said Wednesday.
Before noon Wednesday, Hass, his wife, Ruth, and their grandson Luke were so concerned about the potential for a daylight mountain lion attack that they had loaded handguns on them or within their reach, and Hass had a shotgun close by.
Hass pulled a fly-covered tarp off the carcass of a dead ram in part of his driveway and said the male sheep had been injured so badly and bled out so much that he had to put the creature down, shortly after the panicked ram tried to get into a neighbor’s home to escape whatever attacked it.
The deceased ram had bloodstained puncture wounds and linear cuts and scratches on its neck and close to one ear, and dried blood clotted around its nostrils.
“He was our grandpa sheep,” Ruth Hass, 63, said. “We had him about 15 years.”
“He sired more than 100 sheep,” Randy Hass said of the deceased ram. “He weighs more than 250 pounds.”
One of the Hass neighbors, Jim
Clark, 85, has been living off Peppermint Falls Road for 35 years and said he’s been seeing or hearing of mountain lion in the area
every other year over the decades.
“They come down the mountain behind us, from across the creek,” Clark said. “There’s been four or five reports on social media showing mountain lion going through the trailer park.”
Clark said he was going to get his newspaper from a box on the road about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday when he heard a movement outside on his deck. His cats inside the house were nervous.
“I opened the door part way and I look in the face of a 200-pound sheep that’s really bloody,” Clark said. “He had his head against the door. He wanted to get in. That tells you something about an animal seeking safety, an animal that normally don’t want to come into a house.”
Clark said he closed the door, called Randy Hass, and went out the back door with a rope. Clark said he led the bleeding ram to his driveway and tied him to his truck.
“Randy showed up and I told him ‘Bring your tractor, because you got a sheep that’s about dead here,’ ” Clark said, adding he wasn’t too surprised, because he’d seen a mountain lion strolling by across the road in early March. “It looked at me, paused, and went on. Didn’t run. It jumped the fence.”
Randy Hass said he’s seen the same two mountain lions in the area multiple times this spring. He said the male mountain lion is much larger, and “it looks like he’s been eating well.”
Clark’s wife, Kim, came out and said she remembers a so-called rogue lion that was killing a lot of pets and livestock maybe 30 years ago. The lion was killing to kill, not to eat, and it tore the belly out of a neighbor’s horse one time.
Randy Hass said he’s worried because it’s springtime, and the mountain lion pair might have babies.
“They’re big, beautiful cats,” Kim Clark said. “I don’t want to see them killed.”
“I don’t want to kill a mountain lion either,” said Luke Kear, 18, grandson to Randy and Ruth Hass. “But if it’s charging at you …”
“That’s different,” the Clarks said together, and Randy Hass nodded in agreement.
Kear and his grandfather showed on Randy Hass’ phone where the state Department of Fish and Wildlife has issued Randy Hass a “permit to take wildlife causing crop or property damage” — issued May 17 and expiring May 27.
“Under the provisions of Sections 401 and 402, Title 14, CCR, Randy Hass … is authorized to take 1 mountain lion,” the permit states. “Authorized method of take: Hazing only — no killing authorized.”
The permit also states, “Any mountain lion killed under this permit must be tagged with the special tag furnished with this permit.”
A state Fish and Wildlife biologist who covers eastern Stanislaus, northern Mariposa, and Tuolumne counties could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Randy Hass said he’s called state Fish and Wildlife twice so far this year, and the department has sent a trapper out, but the aggressive mountain lion remains free.
George Harse, a state Fish and Wildlife humanwildlife conflict resolution specialist and scientist based in Fresno, emphasized Wednesday the permit he issued to Randy Hass is “non-lethal” and for “hazing only.”
Harse said the best way for the Hasses and other owners of livestock to protect their animals is to take preventative measures, like placing livestock in full enclosures at night.
Half of California is mountain lion habitat, according to state Fish and Wildlife. The California Wildlife Protection Act of 1990 legally classified mountain lions as a “specially protected mammal.” It is unlawful to take, injure, possess, transport, import, or sell any mountain lion or any part or product thereof, though there are exceptions.
Later, Ruth Hass sat with a neighbor, Toots Van Ruiten, 65, whose husband, Jim Mangante, is a cattle rancher. Van Ruiten said they lost four goats in one night to a mountain lion 20 years ago, and though she and her husband saw a loose pit bull near the Hass place early Tuesday, she examined the deceased ram and said the bloody wounds on its neck looked more like a mountain lion attack than a dog.
Van Ruiten had antibiotics to treat the other ram the Hasses believe was injured by a mountain lion early Tuesday.
“How can we stop this?” Ruth Hass asked. “The attacks are more often and getting worse. What do we do? If we can’t shoot the lion, how can we stop this?”
The Hasses live on a little over 8 acres, with sloping hills, rugged terrain, volcanic rocks, some caves and mine shafts, some oak trees, manzanita, deer brush, and some grass.
Randy Hass said he’s seen mountain lions on his property nearly every year he’s been up there. They come and go, the mountain lions. You can always tell when they are around. There’s no deer. Deer are smart. They can smell. They can scent. The first one he remembers was 22 years ago, probably springtime the first year he was up there, and he saw a mountain lion 40 feet up in a tree, about 10 feet above a dead deer the lion had dragged up the tree.
“They kill their prey and take it up in a tree or bury it,” Randy Hass said. “They hide their prey, and you can smell it. Right now there’s two of them, a male and a female, a big Tom, and she’s much smaller. The male is not afraid of any human. He will take a child, daytime, nighttime. I can’t go anywhere on my property without a gun in my back pocket. My neighbors are afraid to walk on this road. There’s been too much killing going on around Table Mountain the past month. Killing dogs, cats, turkeys, deer, sheep, goats. This thing is a rapid killing machine.”
According to mountainlion.org, if a mountain lion is found in the act of attacking a domestic animal or is seen as an immediate threat to human life, it may be killed by a resident, without repercussion, as long as the state Department of Fish and Wildlife is immediately notified after the incident.
Mountain lion attacks on humans are rare, according to biologists and other scientists. There have been about 20 attacks on humans in the past 35 years in California, and a halfdozen fatal attacks on humans since 1890, according to state Fish and Wildlife.
They do happen. Monday this week in Big Bar, 330 miles north of Jamestown, a woman was walking a Belgian shepherd dog on a trail near a picnic area when a mountain lion swiped at her shoulder, wounded her, and she screamed. Her dog got between the woman and the mountain lion, and the mountain lion nearly killed the dog.
The woman got a passing motorist to stop, they found a section of plastic pipe, and they beat the lion with it until the lion let go of the dog and departed. The dog was said to be recovering, in guarded condition, under veterinary care. The woman sought medical treatment for her injuries in Redding.
To read the state Fish and Wildlife report on the Monday attack, visit https:// wildlife. ca. gov/ News/ cdfw- investigates- possiblemountain- lion- attack- intrinity-county online.