Is there something lurking in our canyons?
The stories go back 20 years. There's never been any proof that a mountain lion/panther/cougar is roaming the canyons and trails around Palos Verdes Peninsula and San Pedro. But now there's been a new one this summer.
Donna Littlejohn
Daily Breeze
Monday, August 28, 2006
"Heeere, kitty-kitty-kitty."
The stories go back 20 years. At least.
A mountain lion/panther/cougar -- the color and description of the animal(s) varies -- is roaming the canyons and trails around Palos Verdes Peninsula and San Pedro.
There's never been any proof. But the sightings seem to surface with some regularity every few years. And now there's a new one this summer.
So what's up with all the cougar sightings?
Urban myth? Someone's exotic pet (or pets) on the loose?
Authorities wish they knew.
They've never been able to confirm a big wildcat in the area. Officials have not found definitive tracks or other physical evidence. No one seems to have any photographs. There certainly have been no reports of attacks.
"If there's a predator of that size, it becomes very obvious by its habits," said Rolling Hills City Manager Craig Nealis. "We don't have any evidence at all to support (the claim) that there's wildlife of that kind in the city."
Wild cougars prowling the Palos Verdes Peninsula?
Not possible, said schoolteacher Martin Byhower, who leads nature hikes in the Harbor Area.
"In historic times, there were bobcats on the Peninsula, and we do have coyotes," he said. "Mountain lions need a huge territory and large prey. We have neither."
But talk to witnesses who have seen the animals, and they are emphatic about what they saw.
Small head dipped low, short ears, long muscular body, and a long, thick, ropelike tail. Slinky. Catlike. But bigger. Much bigger.
"You couldn't miss it," said Brent Howell of Rolling Hills, who along with other family members spotted a "long and low" wildcat lurking around their 3-acre property and in a nearby canyon in the mid- to late-1980s. "Everyone kept pooh-poohing it, saying it was some neighbor's cat. People thought we were crazy."
Lisa Baginski of Torrance got the same reaction two years ago.
"I was so surprised that people weren't that interested," she said after reporting that a very large, black, pantherlike animal with a long "bristly" tail jumped out of the brush about 30 feet away as she walked her two cocker spaniels on a secluded trail in Palos Verdes Estates.
"I couldn't believe my eyes," she said. "I was shocked."
The animal had a classic "refined" face and head of a wildcat, and its body was "huge," she said.
Her claims were met with skepticism, especially when no tracks or other signs could be found.
"I own a business, and I am extremely responsible," Baginski said. "It's not like I go around seeing things like this."
And now the latest: About a month ago, a resident reported seeing a big gray-colored wildcat -- a cougar, she said it was -- near the George F Canyon Nature Center trail in Rolling Hills Estates.
"The city did receive one unconfirmed report of a large cat sighting," said Greg Grammer, an assistant to the city manager of Rolling Hills Estates. "There has been no evidence, and no one has been able to find such an animal."
Lt. Jason Lum of the Lomita sheriff's station said extra patrols are being sent out in search of the animal or its tracks. But they've found nothing yet.
"With all the people who use the George F Canyon trail, you'd think more people would report sightings" if such an animal were out there, he said. "We've sent out deputies and are continuing to do so on a regular basis. But we've been unable to find anything to verify the report."
The state Department of Fish and Game, which also has looked into the incident, has come up empty-handed as well.
"We're not getting any concrete evidence that there's a cat out there," said Lt. Kent Smirl of Fish and Game.
No one is quite sure what to make of the sporadic, unconfirmed sightings through the years.
"These could be myths," Smirl said. Or, he added, people may be seeing animals that were kept as exotic pets and managed to escape.
"It's just all been a dead end," Smirl said. "No one's given me any concrete information."
Even as far back as 1956, former Sheriff Sherman Block, then a deputy stationed in Lennox, apparently tracked a cougar on the Peninsula. He never found it, but he did come up with a paw print that he had cast in plaster, a deputy told the Daily Breeze in 1986.
Barbara Dye, executive director of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Conservancy that manages the George F Canyon Nature Center, said a construction worker told her about a year ago he had seen what looked like a panther.
"He was working on one of the (nearby) properties and he swore he'd seen a gray panther across the canyon," she said. "He seemed sober."
The most recent report this summer is under investigation by city and wildlife authorities, Dye said.
"We're very concerned about it and have called Fish and Game," she said. "We sent out staff right after the (most recent) report, but the only tracks we could find were dog tracks. ... People have paid a lot of attention to the reports, but there has been absolutely no evidence."
Witnesses are confident they have seen a wildcat despite the lack of hard evidence. Among the reported sightings:
• December 1986: A "handful" of residents on the Palos Verdes Peninsula reported seeing a mountain lion roaming the canyons, according to a Dec. 5, 1986, article in the Daily Breeze.
"It was big, bigger than a cat, bigger than a dog," Rosemarie Krawczyk said at the time. "We're scared. We don't know where they are."
Brent and Beth Howell made a tape recording at the time of what they believed was a mountain lion visiting their 3-acre property, where they keep horses and other animals. Several of the family's caged rabbits and chickens were killed, though they had no proof it was the big cat.
Brent Howell, an elder at First Presbyterian Church in San Pedro, said the big cat -- which he described as lean, "dirt" colored and probably weighing 60 to 80 pounds -- continued to be seen or heard for several years after that, roaming the deep canyons. Martine Colette of the Wildlife Way Station in the Angeles National Forest came out and managed to get tracks of what may -- or may not -- have been a puma.
Howell's wife said she spotted a cougar and two cubs one night as she was driving on Portuguese Bend Road near Poppy Trail.
"I saw these big round eyes and two sets of smaller ones below," she recalled this week. As she got closer, her headlights gave her a better look.
The adult was about the size of a Labrador retriever, she said. Asked whether she was sure it was a wildcat, she replied, "Oh yeah."
A Humane Society representative said in 1986 that the Howells' tape recording of the animal sounded like a cougar.
"The hair on your arm would raise up when you heard (that cry) at night," Brent Howell said of the sound that he still can't forget.
But a cougar was never found by authorities, and "we haven't heard or seen hide nor tail of it in the last decade," Brent Howell said.
• November 1999 through May 2000: A vocational school principal, teachers and several day-care workers all reported seeing what appeared to be a blond-colored mountain lion at various times in the distance in San Pedro's 112-acre Angels Gate Park overlooking the ocean.
"I thought, 'Wow, look at that,' " said Mike Wada, principal of the San Pedro Skills Center in the park. He was the third school official to spot the animal.
One of the park's trees was found one morning shredded and gouged by what looked like deep claw marks. Warning signs were posted in the park, but no other evidence was ever found and the sightings abruptly stopped.
"People thought we were crazy," teacher Elena Schrank said years later. "My husband still laughs at me. But I haven't changed my mind."
• Dec. 5, 1999: Diana Huss, a Dodson Middle School biology teacher and George F Canyon docent, said she and a student watched a young mountain lion for about an hour from a distance as it walked along the northern rim of the canyon.
"We were resting on a bench when we heard a loud, high-pitched screech, which I thought was a hawk," she told the Daily Breeze in March 2000. "When we looked up we saw the cat. We watched it for about an hour. It was so amazing."
A golden tawny color, it almost blended in with the scenery, she said. The animal had a long tail, muscular body and slinky movements, all characteristic of a mountain lion.
"It's the only thing it could be," said Huss, who was described as a "very experienced naturalist" by her former supervisor at the nature center.
The animal appeared to be young, perhaps not yet full grown, Huss said.
• Summer 2004: Lisa Baginski of Torrance reported encountering what looked like a black panther behind Fire Station 2 in Palos Verdes Estates.
She was hiking along the secluded fire trail with her two dogs near dusk when a big cat sprang out of some brush about 30 feet ahead of them.
"It wasn't even afraid of me. It looked me in the eye, but then just started stretching in the sun," she said. "It barely gave me the time of day."
She described the animal as "huge," weighing perhaps 150 to 200 pounds.
"It's just burned into my mind," she said. "It just bounded out from up above us into the sun. The tail was absolutely huge and it was very long. If it had stood up (on its hind legs), it would have been over 6 feet tall." It had a shiny coat and looked "healthy," she said.
While its behavior wasn't overtly threatening, she said, "my instincts told me to turn and walk away."
She reported the incident to authorities, but no tracks or other evidence were ever found. A Fish and Game officer told her that it may have been some kind of hybrid animal.
"Nothing was ever found and nobody was ever hurt, so it just kind of went away," said Palos Verdes Estates Police Chief Dan Dreiling. "Nobody's ever verified it."
Others have reported secondhand stories of sightings, including one claim that mountain lion cubs of mixed colors were seen about two years ago on the Peninsula.
Rumors also have made the rounds about someone in the area who owns two now-elderly, declawed big cats -- a black one and a tan one, both wearing some kind of electronic collars -- that are let out to freely roam the canyons.
Gwenna Blackmore of Rolling Hills Estates, who does wildlife rescue in the area, said a woman told her 15 to 20 years ago about a black "leopard" that strayed into her barn near the reservoir on the border of Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates.
But many wildlife experts remain skeptical.
"With the amount of food they'd need to eat, there would be an awful lot of pet-kill problems," said Byhower, a teacher at the Chadwick School on the Peninsula.
Coyotes, foxes and bobcats have been known to live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, but witnesses insist that is not what they saw.
"None of us are crazy. It was for real," Brent Howell said.
"There are so many animals" in the canyons, said Beth Howell, who added that a worker putting up a fence for them about 20 years ago claimed to have seen a deer in one of the canyons. "This business of thinking there are only dogs and cats isn't true. Nobody goes down into these deep canyons."
But until there is hard evidence, Fish and Game authorities are at a loss to explain the mysterious wildcat reports.
"At this point, the department is waiting to get more information," Smirl said.
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