This is a surveillance photo taken on local rancher Charlie McCullough's property. He and others believe the population of the protected species has risen in recent years.
San Benito County ranchers and agriculture officials contend the area's mountain lion population has been rising for years and poses a growing threat, but the state neglects to keep precise counts on the species and maintains the numbers have remained steady in recent decades.
Agriculture Commissioner Paul Matulich this week, however, said he is "100 percent confident" the frequency of sightings and the species' tendency to attack livestock has risen. He also contended that any action toward addressing the problem must start at the state level due to its long-running hunting restrictions and a lacking predator management program.
He agreed with a heightening consensus among locals who say they have seen more evidence of lions, sometimes dangerously close to places where people gather, sometimes after the cougars have devoured livestock.
One of those residents is longtime Panoche cattle rancher Charlie McCullough, who said his own sightings of mountain lions on his property have become far more common than many years ago.
McCullough, who spent 25 years on the county's fish and game board, noted how the mountain lion population had increased steadily from about 1,000 statewide in 1963 to somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 in 1988. That's when the state stopped tracking the species' numbers.
"They still use that 6,000 figure," McCullough said.
He also believes that historical increase - and a continued ascent since then - correlates with a steady decline in numbers to the population of deer, mountain lions' primary food source. The reported deer count in San Benito County, he noted, was just more than 50,000 in 1963. Now, harvest numbers indicate it is between 5,000 and 6,000.
More recently, he contended, an effort by Pinnacles National Monument to remove wild pigs from the park has prompted a lion migration from the public mountainsides onto private ranches to seek out boars, another common food source for cougars in this area.
In arguing that state officials should focus on re-establishing a lion count as a start toward reducing the potential danger, McCullough recalled a mountain lion recently walked by playground equipment on his property but ran off when his dogs started barking.
For an expanded version of this story, get a copy of the Free Lance on Tuesday.
Kollin Kosmicki Kollin Kosmicki is editor of the Free Lance and Pinnacle. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 337 or editor@freelancenews.com.
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