POINT-COUNTERPOINT ON STATE'S GROWING MOUNTAIN LION POPULATION\Common sense management is needed.

Byline: Tim Leslie

WHEN was the last time you heard of a government agency that honestly wanted to do its job but was prevented by law from doing so?

Not something you hear of very often, but that has been the case since Proposition 117 passed in 1990 and the Department of Fish and Game was banned from managing California's top predator - the mountain lion.

On March 26, we have an opportunity to reverse this strange circumstance by passing Proposition 197.

Simply put, Proposition 197 will restore common sense to California's wildlife management by allowing wildlife professionals to do their job. This initiative gives those trained in species and habitat protection the authority to adopt a mountain lion management plan to protect the cougar, its habitat, public safety, and other species as well.

Opponents to this wildlife management measure are claiming that Proposition 197 is an effort by the gun lobby to restore sport hunting of the California mountain lion. Nothing could be further from the truth. The origin of Proposition 197 goes back to when a mother of two small children was killed and eaten by a mountain lion in a public park in the foothills above Sacramento.

Because the experts at the Department of Fish and Game currently have no legal authority to proactively manage the lion population, these predators are decimating the deer, elk, and endangered bighorn sheep populations of California.

Although the problem may not seem real to urban citizens, many of those living in rural and suburban areas know firsthand the terror of encountering a mountain lion in their front yard or having a pet carted off by the ever-bolder sub-dominant lions. If we do nothing, the mountain lion population will continue to explode - resulting in an unknown number of deaths and attacks on people, pets and livestock.

The increase in threatening mountain lion situations cannot be explained away by simply saying that people are moving into mountain lion territory. Even long-established rural and suburban communities are experiencing cougar encounters at an alarming rate.

Of 91 endangered bighorn sheep fitted with radio tracking collars in a herd in the Anza-Borrego Desert from November 1992 through January 1996, 27 were killed by mountain lions. Mountain lions threaten the long-term viability of herd recovery in areas where the species had been making a comeback.

In an increasingly common type of incident, a mountain lion attacked and killed a 90-pound German Shepherd, just a half-mile from an elementary school. Three nights later, the cat returned, leaped a five-foot fence, killed a goat, and escaped with its prey in its mouth by jumping back over the fence.

A lion was found at the urban Montclair Plaza shopping mall just outside Los Angeles. The lion had to be shot when it attacked a police officer responding to the emergency call.

The opposition is right on one point: Proposition 197 does not specifically endorse hunting as the means for controlling the lion population. They are wrong, however, to infer some sort of sinister motive behind this omission.

Proposition 197 is needed, and it brings common sense to wildlife management in California while protecting the viability of the mountain lion population. It deserves your support.

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CALIFORNIA'S MOUNTAIN LION