Santa Monica on Lockdown as Mountain Lion Naps in Backyard
California promised harmony with Nature after mountain lion protection measure passed in 1990. Nature didn’t get the memo.
In a review on hunting policies written 10 years ago, I noted that California banned mountain lion hunting through a voter initiative in 1990.
As described in a book that tackles this topic (“The Beast in the Garden”), these big cats gradually became habituated to humans. Now, over 30 years after the California ballot measure passed, there are real-world consequences… as these animals are not simply giant-sized kittens.
A mountain lion has forced residents of Santa Monica and their tiny pets indoors as officials try to track the wild cat.
The Santa Monica Police Department descended on the residential area of 14th and Montana Friday morning after someone allegedly saw the animal roaming the area.
“Out of an abundance of caution, officers are in the area assessing the report and working with appropriate wildlife resources. At this time, there are no reported injuries,” a tweet from the department said.
The mountain lion was first located sleeping in a residential backyard, and has not moved from that location, a SMPD spokesperson told The California Post. Officers are waiting on further assistance from wildlife fish and game officers.
BREAKING: A report of a mountain lion has forced residents of Santa Monica and their tiny pets indoors as officials scour the area for the apex predator. https://t.co/nxrqRmW7mX pic.twitter.com/j13D3vvFcx
— California Post (@californiapost) May 29, 2026
Mountain lions are also being described as an “imminent threat to public safety” in a rural Northern California community, as locals report increasing sightings of the animals near residences.
According to a May 15 Facebook release from the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff John McGarva issued an official declaration “stating the lions are an imminent threat to public safety” on May 13. The declaration follows numerous reports about increasingly bold mountain lion activity in the Gold Run area near Amesbury Drive and Hill Creek Road.
The sheriff’s office stated residents first began reporting concerns in the summer of 2025, describing encounters in which mountain lions lingered near homes, wandered beneath decks, and became increasingly difficult to scare away.
Most recently, on May 11, residents sent deputies five separate videos allegedly showing as many as five mountain lions crossing through private property near homes, according to the release. Authorities said the animals appeared “comfortable with human presence and are unconcerned about human presence or animals as a deterrent.”
“The lions are moving freely and without concern for human intervention,” the sheriff’s office wrote in the statement, adding that traditional deterrents such as yelling, loud noises, chasing, and fencing “have been ineffective for several months.”
The Lassen County Sheriff says mountain lions are becoming more of a threat especially to families. @KRCR7
Who to call if you see a mountain lion: https://t.co/3v7oEL86jM pic.twitter.com/Kr188dlihU
— Arianna Martinez (@Arianna_TV) May 18, 2026
The realities of this “new normal” are sharpening a long-simmering debate between those dealing with the consequences of living closely with these predators and eco-activists who generally prefer the felines over their fellow humans.
Wildlife experts recommend bringing pets indoors at night, supervising small animals outside, securing livestock, trimming vegetation near homes, and removing attractants that can draw prey species — and, in turn, predators — closer to neighborhoods.
Better land-use planning and habitat connectivity could reduce the likelihood of these encounters by providing mountain lions with safe routes away from homes.
Many dangerous situations can be prevented if residents know how to respond calmly and avoid escalating an encounter.
Horrific moment mountain lion breaks into SoCal woman's backyard and rips apart her husky and Anatolian shepherd https://t.co/EW2rKOMv58 pic.twitter.com/OEpEO6iAZM
— California Post (@californiapost) April 21, 2026
Those now struggling with the consequences of the 1990 vote and the lack of robust protections from the state wildlife agency are growing angrier and less accepting of the puma-centered solutions being proposed.
“A mountain lion that is constantly on my parents’ deck, feet away from the sliding glass door, my parents are in their eighties, yes, I’m scared every freaking day,” Dreu Murin, whose family has lived on a ranch in Susanville since 1900, told The Times.
He accused the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the agency responsible for managing the predators, of failing to do its job.
…The increasingly contentious debate encapsulates the tension between urban and rural communities in California, with Murin arguing city-dwellers have no idea what life is like for farmers.
“If they think it’s so easy to live around them, let’s relocate some lions to parks in Los Angeles and San Francisco,” he said. “Let them be around them and see how unpredictable these animals are. Because I guarantee if their cat or their son got killed, they’d change their tune.”
Family dog saves baby from mountain lion in South Lake Tahoe, California!! pic.twitter.com/uTX37kOma6
— The Adventurous Soul (@TAdventurousoul) October 6, 2025
The mountain lion now touring Santa Monica while police stand watch and residents huddle indoors with their Chihuahua is the unintended consequence of California’s 1990 ballot measure coming to roost.
Voters were promised harmony with nature; they are getting nature on nature’s terms.
From the rural ranches of Lassen County, where five lions prowl through private property without a care, to the manicured streets of Santa Monica’s 14th and Montana, the message from California’s mountain lions could not be clearer: the habitat expansion is going swimmingly… for them.
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Comments
Jaxson Dart could earn some more fans here.
If you don’t know the reference, a bunch of leftists online went to try and find “dirt” on him after the Trump intro, and they pathetically clung to a picture of him having hunted a mountain lion, not knowing that
1. Encroachment hunting is actually good for both neighborhood pets and the overpredation of other wildlife
2. Jaxson is probably pretty used to being hunted by cougars.
Nyuk, nyuk.
Coyotes do much more damage to pets. No scares there
Tell that to the 2 dogs ripped apart in the tweet above.
Frank G is correct. More pets are killed by coyotes every year than mountain lions.
downvote me all you want. As a former Wildlife Biologist I can tell you coyotes are in all 50 states and mountain lions are not. Coyotes kill far more pets than mountain lions. This is not open for debate.
In my suburban neighborhood we hear the coyotes, and sometime you hear them hunting dogs in people’s backyard. First the dog yapping wildly. Then the fight as they move in (usually just a couple of seconds). Followed by a few minutes later the coyotes dragging the corpse back to feed the liter. Can’t hear them dragging, but you can hear the yowls when they arrive.
@Frank G:
Mountain lions are bigger, stealthier, and all around more dangerous than coyotes. A large, healthy tomcat could probably fight off a coyote, and woe to the coyote (or any other dog) that might get too close to a malkin with kits. Further, while mountain lion attacks on humans are a bit rarer than people getting struck by lightning, their are documented cases of their attacking children.
Granted, mountain lions are great for controlling deer populations; but it seems as if California could use a regulated hunting season for them.
Agreed and I’d add that many domesticated dogs would also face pretty serious consequences against either. They have instincts but many of those have been trained out of them by domestication. They’ve also been bred out in many lineages.
Akitas, German Shepherds, Pitts, Some Dobermans and Rottweilers, breeds with real wolf in them, and a few others probably have the best chances, but it’s going to be grave injury unless they have a pack. Some of the biggest dogs would actually not do well at all in that fight (Danes, St. Bernards, Mastiffs, Retrievers, etc.).
The puma is called “The switchblade killer” for a reason. One time a photographer was photographing deer in the wild.. all of a sudden a cougar …. “out of nowhere”… took down the deer. Coyotes and cougars fear nothing in the urine colored state of Kalifornia.
Your not correct. All housecats are prey to coyotes. Stop your fantastical thinking as it’s just not true.
I can believe coyotes do more damage both per capita and on an absolute basis, since they’re extremely adaptable and breed like rats, but that’s all the more reason to keep cougars from joining the ranks of pest species. Cougars are more dangerous on pound-for-pound basis but easier to control as long as you don’t get complacent.
It’s Disney’s fault for anthropomorphizing animals.
To an extent yes, maybe even a large extent. IMO, what’s more unforgivable is that adults use their memory of childhood movies/cartoons to shape their positions as voters, seemingly to the exclusion of all else…at least in re to hunting, wildlife management and good stewardship. It’s well past time to stop allowing urban dwellers to shape policies in rural areas unless they are willing to share the same policies. IOW if the lefty crunchy granola types want wolves/cougar ‘reintroduced to their former range’ but no hunting then they can take them into their neighborhood. Might be an effective way to clear out the junkies and so forth from the parks/sidewalks.
I’ve advocated for reintroduction programs in urban areas for decades.
I think it would both increase support for the 2d Amendment and decrease the size of the packs of feral humans that often inhabit such areas.
Absolutely. Wolves and cougar released in the fifteen largest metropolitan areas would be one heck of a social experiment especially since in the first few years/decades they’d need to be ‘protected’ legally until their numbers reach historic levels.
For the record, I live in a small mountain town. I am less than a mile from a river which is a major highway for all sorts of critters, predators and prey. Judging by the tracks and droppings; we have deer in great quantity, bears, rarely a cougar, and sundry other animals pass through our yard. Our trash dumpsters have to be “bear resistant”.
We manage because if an animal becomes a threat or a nuisance, we simply have to call the Division of Wildlife and they are here, Johnny on the spot. Depending on the animal and the situation, they are either trapped or tranquilized, radio tagged, and taken away to be released in the wild. If they are a repeat offender, it is assumed that they have become habituated to humans and they are euthanized. [Come to think of it, that would not be a bad plan for felony offenders.]
In any case it is plain that our DOW cares more for people than critters that are posing a danger to humans. I do admit a certain anticipation if during LA’s final collapse the predators start going for Lefists.
Subotai Bahadur
I stayed at a Minnesota Holiday Inn that had a huge sign in its parking lot: “STAY AWAY FROM BEARS.”
According to our Dept of Fsh & Game cougars can’t be relocated around here. Population growth has eliminated any unclaimed territory. When a young cougar is forced into exurbia then once they take livestock they are trapped and euthanized.
We have a number of snotty brained city folk living here who completely lose their minds when this happens. They start screaming about how farmers should have to build expensive predator proof barns to protect their pets. Absolutely nuts
Doesn’t “an abundance of caution” always actually mean an overreaction?
Actually, no — often it means total inaction. when that’s exactly the wrong choice,
At any given moment, the urge to sing ‘the lion sleeps tonight’ is just a whim away
A whim away
A whim away
A whim away… 🙂
oh boy…. that is so bad
I am still chuckling.
well done!
My cousin married a man seven years her junior. All this talk about cougars makes me nervous.
.
IDK, A well timed encounter with a cougar or a series of them can form the basis of a solid education for a young Man….though it is vitally important to release them back into the wild at the end of the encounter. The last thing you need is a cougar hanging around who views you as an easy meal whenever they get hungry and who will return even after that territory has been claimed.
The anonymous down vote presumably follows Tom T Hall guidance for better life:
Faster Horses, Younger Women, Older Whiskey and more money.
Personally I came to appreciate older women in my 20s, after all, they make Beautiful Lovers b/c ‘it takes some living to get good at giving’.
Not me as I was the beneficiary of several engagements. I also never considered myself a victim but blessed.
We have mountain lions out here. If they get too threatening, we just shoot them.
Oh, this is about California? Too bad.
Location, location, location.
Some years back, our gelding burro got out the gate for a “holiday.” Usually, he’s back in 24 hours. This time, it was several days, and when he came back he was pretty scratched up. But he came back home, which means the mountain lion (turned out to be a parentless juvenile) didn’t. They may be “apex predators,” but they’re not invincible.
Many ranchers here in Oklahoma keep a donkey or two with their cattle herds to keep away coyotes and feral dogs. They’ve got some kind of blood grudge against coyotes and will chase them away on sight, and kick and trample any who aren’t smart enough to run.
True story. In Iraq I was doing overwatch and a donkey got attacked by a large pack of dogs. We couldn’t intervene without revealing our position. That donkey fought like hero, jumping and kicking, turning and bucking but the numbers were just too great for him to overcome and the tether didn’t help. It looked like one of those old ‘wild kingdom’ episodes without the narration.
Donkies and Llamas.
substitute “mountain lions” for certain left wing adherents
““A mountain lion that is constantly on my parents’ deck, feet away from the sliding glass door…”
Mr. Mountain Lion, meet Mr. M-100.
Mr. Mountain Lion meet Mr. 308. SSS, folks.
At least it’s not a capuchin monkey.
(Outbreak reference.)
I got bitten by a capuchin monkey at a wild life resort .
Big teeth for such a small monkey, but boy did it hurt
One got loose down NC way a few years ago. A nurse at the hospital was walking to his car after the midnight shift and if dropped out of a tree on him.
I live in a rural area and if mountain lions were strolling up on people’s yards on a regular basis, the property owners would take care of business. You’re supposed to call game and fish the next day to report it but most people view that as optional. We also have mountain lion hunting season here. It’s done by game units and done to keep the population from getting out of hand like it’s doing in California.
I would also look to shoot the animal in the same situation. No good reason to have that instinct and that particular territorial tendency remain in the gene pool.
Looking at the video, the one in question is borderline starving.
35 years. Now we have a guide for length of time to reach pest status.
Kinda like invading foreign nationals.
What a coincidence.
Oh, leave them alone. They’re just looking for a meal. I’ve had them here and they didn’t bother anything that didn’t look like food.
When they get habituated and/or desperate, anything they can tackle looks like food.
In 2008, Chicago police shot a cougar. https://abc7chicago.com/archive/6080893/
https://barnraisingmedia.com/mapping-a-mountain-lions-ghost-midwest/
But did her life insurance pay out?
.
Cute kitty. Maybe it will thin out the homeless junkie population.
Why do you want to poison the wildlife?
the unintended consequence of California’s 1990 ballot measure coming to roost.
————————
Any hunter would tell you it’s not an unintended consequence.