I'm going to post snippets & links to a couple of stories below, but let me just first say, this issue has it all!
This issue links our primitive body awareness with our spirituality and with contemporary social and political issues of great importance--for what is more important than the future of our children and the biosphere of which we are stewards?
OK, the best resource that I know of on this issue is David Baron's
The Beast in the Garden, which reads like a page-turner detective story, while giving solid research on the development of the present situation on the Front Range in Colorado. Mr. Baron, of NPR fame, has done his homework about this issue, IMO. Needless to say, he has his detractors!
Amazon.com: The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America: Books: David Baron
The following story took place in the Evergreen, Colorado area. Evergreen is south of Boulder, next to Denver:
Quote:
Stalking lion puts fear into family
Evergreen predator makes off with pet, shows interest in son
By Kirk Mitchell
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 05/31/2006 01:24:11 AM MDT
Evergreen - A mountain lion narrowly missed taking a bite out of Shaffer Warner's legs as the man rushed through his front door on a recent night.
A week earlier, the mountain lion crushed Indigo, the family's Siamese cat, in its jaws in front of Warner's wife Carrie as she pummeled it with firewood a few feet from their home near Cub Creek Park.
But what disturbs the couple the most is that the big cat has crouched outside the bedroom window of their 6-year-old son Schylure and stared at the boy.
"We're scared out of our minds," Carrie Warner said. "There is something very strange about the way this lion is hunting us. I'm at the end of my rope."
The Warners are worried that, just as a boy was mauled by a mountain lion near a popular trail in Boulder about a month ago, their nightly tormentor will eventually attack their son or them.
DenverPost.com - Stalking lion puts fear into family |
Quote:
Palo Alto Weekly
Publication Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2004
In the lion's den?
More mountain lions spotted near residential areas, official says
by Bill D'Agostino and Tony Burchyns
On a table at the Palo Alto nature center, City Naturalist Deborah Bartens displayed a map of the region, replete with tricolor-coded flags. The colors represent degrees of danger that mirror America's terrorist-alert system.
The surfeit of green flags pinpoint locations where a mountain lion has been recently sighted in its natural habitat. The few yellow flags represent where a cougar was outside of its habitat. There are no red flags, which is why Bartens spends much of her time tracking various sightings.
Red flags signal a mountain lion attack.
The number of mountain lion sightings in Palo Alto has increased exponentially in 2004. In the previous nine years, there were only 16 unconfirmed sightings in the city's open space preserves. During the first nine months of this year, there have been 30, according to data collected by Palo Alto Ranger Michelle Wagner.
Although it's not known how much of that jump is due to people's heightened awareness after the police's high-profile -- and controversial -- shooting of a cougar five months ago, Bartens believes the ill-fated feline that traveled into Palo Alto on May 17 was prescient.
"That lion came in with a message that was loud and clear: 'Pay attention, because things are changing," she said.
In the lion's den? (October 13, 2004) |
Palo Alto is a city in the San Francisco Bay Area & is the economic focal point of Silicon Valley. Median family income is $117,000. Homes in Palo Alto run from $700,000 to well in excess of $10,000,000, according to Wikipedia. It is home to Stanford University, Hewlitt-Packard and Xerox.
It is also home to a very busy and worried City Naturalist, Deborah Barten, who carries a dedicated cell phone for cougar issues, the "cat phone."
Personally, I think City Naturalist Deborah Bartens is the one who is prescient, and kudos to her for that!
But here is a photo (taken by an unnamed news cameraman for KPIX-TV) of the beautiful but ill-fated 110 pound male, "prescient" lion that travelled into Palo Alto on May 17, 2004" and was shot by police just
three blocks from an elementary school:
"PAY ATTENTION! THINGS ARE CHANGING!"