With vultures circling, a mountain lion lurking and two dead animals lying on his property, a local resident has been observing the circle of life take place in his own backyard for the last few days - and he's not pleased."I had one goat and one sheep and now they're both dead," said Mike Ternasky, a resident of west Gilroy's Rancho Vista Court. His prime suspect is a mountain lion.
As he was driving down his driveway Sunday afternoon, Ternasky noticed vultures swarming in his yard. As he got closer, he could see the half-eaten carcass of his 9-month-old goat.
"I decided to leave it there and just let them clean off the carcass," Ternasky said.
He reported the killing to the Sheriff's Department, which directed him to the California Department of Fish and Game. After being put on hold and directed to push this and that button, Ternasky gave up and went to bed that night with his back door open a crack to listen for "attacking sounds - screaming or growling," he said.
After a peaceful night, he awoke to find "more vultures and one more dead animal," he said. "This mountain lion seems to be killing for sport. If I could have shot it I would have."
But California residents must first obtain a depredation permit from the Department of Fish and Game. Four depredation permits were issued in Santa Clara County in 2008 and that number has risen in the past 25 years. Of those four permits, only one was used to successfully kill a mountain lion.
Mountain lions increasingly prey on pets and livestock as more people move into mountain lion habitat, according to Fish and Game's Web site. Fish and Game receives hundreds of reports annually of mountain lions killing pets and livestock. Attacks on humans, however, are rare. There have been only 16 verified mountain lion attacks on humans in California since 1890, six of them fatal. The last documented attack occurred in January 2007 in Humboldt County.
Since Sunday night, there's been no sign of the rogue mountain lion on Ternasky's property. Still, he and his wife distributed warning notices to their neighbors. The vultures - as many as 27 at a time - are still sitting in his trees and on his fence, taking their time picking the bones of his sheep and goat clean. His cats, which usually roam the yard freely, have taken to confining themselves to the house.
"They can smell death in the air," Ternasky said.
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