Sorry, Bambi

Rancho San Antonio Park, Los Altos

Our impressions about nature are shaped at an early age. For city dwellers who have no connection or experience with hunting, it's hard to shake the idyllic image of Bambi. Wild animals are friendly, anthropomorphized beings, and the placid creatures that are seen in zoos do nothing to contradict that childhood conception.

We whose daily existence is lived far from the forest, i.e, urbanites and suburbanites, dream of Walden though few would actually live there.

Cougar near San Jose (SJMN photo)

The deer that are encountered in suburban parks know from experience that they have nothing to fear from humans. However, other animals that have begun to appear near human habitation are not so friendly.

The mountain lion (cougar):

Chris Wilmers, a mountain lion expert at UC Santa Cruz, has radio-collared 33 lions since 2008 between Big Basin Redwoods State Park and Mount Madonna County Park near Gilroy. He estimated that 50 to 100 lions live in the Santa Cruz Mountains.....The lion photographed weighs more than 100 pounds. Wilmers said it is a male from 4- to 10-years-old, and it looks healthy.

The feral pig:

Twenty-five years ago, spotty wild pig pockets were found in fewer than 20 different states. Now, they’re in 47 states [including California], with Florida, Texas, and a few others approaching crisis levels.

Wild pigs destroy the landscape and breed incessantly. Most alarmingly, they're very intelligent.

Pigs have been known to scope out traps for days before sending in the group's lowest ranking members to test for danger. And if a trap isn't built just right, the pigs will find a way out, either by climbing over each other or squeezing under the fencing.....feral pigs are quite elusive. Rarely seen during the day, they have learned to avoid being taken down by rifles or suckered into traps. [snip]

pigs have learned to break the floats in stock tanks to keep water flowing for their mud baths.

A single cat can take down a pig, but the latter have the smarts and the numbers. Despite what stock market experts say, the triumph of the pigs looks inevitable. © 2013 Stephen Yuen