April 29, 2004

Street Talk by Shari Kaplan

A growing number of people in South Bay parks and residential areas have reported seeing mountain lions and coyotes. Have you ever encountered one, and if so, what happened?
(Asked at Almaden’s Quicksilver Park)


“We used to live out here off Guadalupe Mines Road, and we saw a mountain lion once. We’d hear coyotes, but we never saw them. We also saw a baby mountain lion at St. Joseph’s Hill Open Space Preserve. That was a little more scary, because we knew the mother was around to protect it. From our experience, wild animals seem more scared of us than we are of them. Usually you catch them off guard, which is startling. The animals have a right to be here anyway; it was their land first.”

Brad Miller, 31
Cambrian
Software engineer

“I work at Foothill College and one time I talked my friend Vonda into taking a hike during lunch. She started complaining as soon as we started up a hill, so we started walking back, and that’s when we saw four coyotes! They looked at us and we looked at them. I told her I’d heard you’re supposed to look big and be loud when you feel threatened by a coyote or mountain lion, so we started kicking dirt, raising our arms and grabbing sticks. Vonda yelled, “Help! Help!” but no one came. The coyotes eventually got up and just slowly walked away. I wonder what they thought of us? I wasn’t really afraid, but she was deathly afraid!”

Annette Perez, 41
Almaden Valley
Purchasing agent

“I’ve been told mountain lions and coyotes will usually try to avoid you. It’s a concern to me, but I’ve never run into either of them. I hike both sides of Lexington Dam and I hike here too. I did have a coyote pass through my yard once. At first I thought it was someone’s scrawny dog, but I realized it was a coyote because of its very large ears. It was aware I was there, but it just kept going. I sometimes worry about my cats, but I’m not going to make housecats out of them.”

Rick Hooker, 56
Redwood Estates
Property inspector

“We’re aware of the issue of mountain lions and coyotes, but we’re not really concerned. We hike here and also along the Bernal Trail, and we’ve seen signs out there that warn people about sightings. We keep our dog on a leash whenever we hike; otherwise, that’s asking for trouble. We hike during the day; I think during daytime there are enough people on the trails to deter the wild animals. And we always stay on the trail.”

Pam Rodrigues, 32
Santa Teresa
Operations manager

“We don’t live too far from this park, and we hear coyotes almost every night. The creek runs right behind the neighbors’ house, and it sounds like the coyotes are down there barking, yapping and howling. I hear it on and off; it’s not continuous, but it does go on throughout the night. I never heard any of my neighbors talk about seeing coyotes on their property, though.”

James Leeburn, 18
Almaden Valley
Construction worker

“We saw a coyote in one of the parks near Skyline Boulevard in the Palo Alto area. We came out of a corner while we were hiking, and we came upon the coyote about 10 meters away. We stopped, and we just kind of stared at each other. It was neat seeing wildlife like that. I was kind of excited; I wasn’t afraid of it. And then we left.”

Armin Schwartzman, 31
Stanford
Graduate student