BIG CAT ELUSIVE FOR TEAMS OF ARMED TRACKERS.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

SIMI VALLEY - The hunt for the mysterious big cat roaming east Ventura County took teams of trackers riding ATVs through rain-soaked hills and valleys Tuesday, but after a week they've turned up only giant paw prints and a couple of witness sightings.

One team of wildlife experts followed a dog running across a hill below the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, another group of armed men slogged through pouring rain along the base of Route 23.

The search teams were just east of the freeway below the library, where what appeared to be a lion was spotted by ranch hand Luis Romo just before 10 a.m. Feb. 15. Another witness saw the animal that same afternoon chasing some cattle on a hillside.

Officials said there are many things they don't understand about the elusive feline, but they're convinced it could be very dangerous.

``People in this area should be cautious - keep an eye on their kids, and don't let them out alone,'' said Lt. Christopher Long of the California Department of Fish and Game.

Fish and Game officials also urged the owner of the big cat to come forward to help in the search, with one saying he or she had a ``moral responsibility'' to help out.

``Any information we could get about this animal would be helpful in determining how domesticated it might be, what it eats, how it behaves,'' Fish and Game spokesman Mike Winamute said. ``These are all clues that might help us locate it.''

Fish and Game officers have found the prints of a big cat that could weigh 500 pounds or so near an old racetrack and the freeway. They believe the animal is a lion, tiger or even a liger - a cross between the two.

``There were hundreds of prints, maybe thousands,'' said Long, who is supervising the search involving five federal trackers and about a dozen Fish and Game wardens.

The intense hunt - looking like a safari except for the sight of hundreds of cars passing by above on the freeway and the nearby estate homes and horse ranches - took the trackers to a lake that had formed from days of heavy rain. Members of each of the five teams are armed with handguns, rifles that fire tranquilizer darts and high-powered rifles that fire bullets.

Officials, who have set traps with meat, don't know what the giant cat has been eating and they are mystified by how few sightings have been reported.

At night, trackers are using a helicopter equipped with infrared equipment to try to locate the feline.

The search was focused Tuesday on an area around Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark, with their nearby golf courses, nurseries and stables where students practiced riding on show horses, and hillsides with grazing sheep and cattle.

As Long examined a large steel trap baited with the carcass of a dead goat, Luis Romo, the ranch hand who first spotted the animal, walked up wearing a Fish and Game baseball cap.

Romo said he thinks he startled the cat when he approached it on his tractor.

``It looked like a lion, but I just saw the tail, not the body. I've never seen anything like it before,'' said Romo, who estimated he was about 30 feet from the animal.

``My boss told me I could take the day off, and I told my wife and 8-year-old daughter they couldn't go outside.''

Long said he'd never seen anything like this before in 23 years with the Fish and Game Department. He'd been in many mountain lion hunts, but was sure this was no mountain lion.

The paw prints measured around 51 inches from the rear feet to the front.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department said a photograph taken by ranch hands of paw prints indicated the cat had been wandering in the Santa Rosa Valley between Thousand Oaks and Camarillo. The photograph was taken by employees of a ranch near Baron Brothers Nursery in the 5000 block of Santa Rosa Road on Feb. 8.

``Those tracks, while they just came to our attention, were found by the owner Feb. 8,'' said Troy Swauger, a spokesman for Fish and Game Department. ``Newer tracks were found by Highway 23.''

He said the rain can actually help trackers to some extent. ``If you've got the ground soft from the rain, you've got a good impression. It can be like a plaster cast. There are advantages to every type of weather. When it dries out it will be easier to get around.''

Bert Lamb, a rancher whose family owns the property where the prints were photographed, was startled by the size of the prints.

``I was a little surprised that it appears to be the same animal and it was all the way down by our property. I'm not an expert, but it's a big track, it's really big.''

Earlier this month state and county officials forced an animal trainer to remove 22 exotic cats, including lions and tigers, from a home near the spot where the trackers are working now. Officials say the owner told them the big animal wandering around the area did not belong to him and said all of his cats were accounted for.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Lt. Christopher Long of the state Fish and Game Department looks over a trap Tuesday set up on a ranch in Simi Valley as part of the hunt for a mysterious big cat.

(2 -- color) A paw print from a big cat is seen on the Day Creek Ranch in Simi Valley where a trap has been set up for the elusive feline.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer