A Morgan Hill woman told police she was worried a mountain lion
she had encountered on Sunday killed one of her dogs.
A Morgan Hill woman told police she was worried a mountain lion she had encountered on Sunday killed one of her dogs.
According to Morgan Hill Police Cpl. Melinda Zen, Davlyn Giovanetti and her three dogs, a pointer, a collie and a Shetland Sheepdog, were out for a walk in the same neighborhood where a mountain lion and her cub have a lair and were seen several times earlier this year. Giovanetti let the dogs off leash so they could run, but they caught the scent of something and took off.
When only the pointer and the collie returned, Giovanetti went walking in a dry creek bed to look for the 2-year-old Sheltie – which resembles a small collie – and she came upon a full-grown mountain lion about 30 feet away.
“It was a harrowing experience,” Davlyn Giovanetti said. “I was so worried because my dog just doesn’t do this (run away).”
Giovanetti said she has had other encounters with lions and was quite sure it was a mountain lion, not a bobcat. Police agree it probably was a mountain loin, according MHPD Lt. Terrie Booten, and Giovanetti was lucky the situation didn’t get worse.
“She did all the wrong things,” Booten said. “She backed away and crouched behind a bush.”
State Fish and Game Warden Kyle Kroll, who was called to the scene Sunday, agreed with Booten.
“If you come upon a mountain lion, you should make yourself as big and as noisy as possible,” Kroll said. “Hunkering down makes you look like prey and invites an attack – jumping up and down could scare the lion and make it run away.”
The lion looked at Giovanetti, Kroll said, and walked off, not attempting an attack. After she called police on her cell phone at 12:19 p.m., they combed the area looking for the lion, the dog or any evidence of a confrontation.
Kroll said he thought the dog may have been hiding scared somewhere and would possibly show up. Giovenetti’s Sheltie returned home early Monday morning.
Shortly after Giovanetti called police, a neighbor of hers told Kroll he was walking across a small bridge on his property, on his way to an observatory, when he noticed something dark under the bridge.
“At first he thought it was a fox,” Kroll said, “but since it did not have a bushy tail he thought it was probably a lion cub.”
The cub ran into a nearby culvert, about 12 inches in diameter; neighbors piled rocks at the opening, which Kroll later removed.
“I wasn’t sure if the cub was still there,” Kroll said, “but I moved the rocks so it could meet up with its mother after everything calmed down.”
Kroll advised pet owners in mountain lion territory, similar to Morgan Hill’s eastern and western hills, to bring dogs and cats in at night and during dusk and dawn, prime lion hunting times.
In late March this year, police found three cubs in the back yard of a house near Llagas and Hale avenues, next to Shadow Mountain School.
One was tranquilized and released in the back country, a second escaped and was hit by a car and killed and the third was shot and killed because it tried to claw through the screen door of a house. Morgan Hill police received many angry calls, e-mails and letters accusing them of unacceptable cruelty to the cats but Fish and Game wardens said the police acted responsibly. The incident gained attention nationwide.
Mountain lion experts said the increasing encounters between lions and humans is caused by residential areas pushing further into the lions’ territory.
