Malibu residents are awakened in the dead of the night to the noises of two young mountain lions frolicking on their deck and in their backyard pool. Park rangers believe they are new to the area.
By Lori Allen / Special to the Malibu Times
In the early hours of May 10, Malibu resident Kathleen Norton was awakened by the loud sounds of thumping above her bedroom ceiling. Immediately waking her husband, David, the couple speculated about what could be causing the ruckus and instantly ruled out the possibility of a burglary. The only conclusion they gathered was the noises had to be those of a very large animal. Carefully tiptoeing up the stairs with a fear of the unknown, they peeked out the glass windows of their living room and, much to their surprise, they saw two young mountain lions frolicking on the roof deck, which is built on the top floor of their home and next to their heated swimming pool. The energetic animals splashed water out of the pool and could have weighed about 80 pounds each.
After watching the scene for several minutes, the Nortons’ whispers behind the looking glass suddenly got the cougars’ attention. The animals stopped moving and stared back at the humans in the dead of night. In order to get a better look at what was going on, Kathleen turned on the deck light to hopefully catch a thorough glimpse of the cougars’ physical characteristics. The lights suddenly startled the animals, immediately causing them to spring up from the deck, leap over a six-foot steel fence that surrounds the property and dash into the hillside near Latigo Canyon Road.
“It was awe-inspiring, magical and, at first, quite frightening, just because of the deep knowledge and the sense of the unknown,” Kathleen Norton said. “I couldn’t believe it once I saw them looking at us and they had been playing on the deck. I was really excited and thankful. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
There have been no mountain lion sightings in the Malibu area since Norton’s account.
Although the Nortons built a steel fence around their property to keep deer and rattlesnakes away, the mountain lions were still able to jump over it and into a backyard. Mountain lions, also called cougars, are known to be on the prowl searching for food between dusk till dawn and can jump over a fence up to 22 feet high. Although the Nortons do not own any small pets, they have sometimes seen raccoons and rabbits lurking around the property. Wildlife experts say mountain lions tend to gravitate to areas where they pick up the smell of small animals to prey on. It is recommended to avoid feeding any deer or wildlife that comes close to public or private property. If possible, leave pet food inside during the peak hours of mountain lion activity.
Ray Sauvajot, chief of planning, science and resource management for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said if the behavior of a mountain lion is a danger or a threat, people should be concerned. But for now, he said, there is no immediate cause to be worried. Still, hikers and locals should be informed that with summer coming up, mountain lion sightings in the Santa Monica Mountains could increase.
Sauvajot has been following mountain lion activity closely in the Malibu area for sometime now by monitoring their activity through GPS radio tracking device collars.
“There are four young lions that we are tracking, all from the mother that was killed last year,” he confirmed in an e-mail to the Times.
Last summer, a male mountain lion known as P1 killed his mate, known as P2, on Aug. 12, while she was feeding on deer kill. Her four young cubs were with her at the time, and Park Service rangers speculated at the time that a fight broke out because predators are defensive of their prey, and also possibly because her cubs were still quite young, causing the female to be more aggressive toward the male.
The cougars being tracked are two males and two females. The males reside at opposite ends of the mountains, one in the vicinity of Topanga State Park and the other in the western portions of Point Mugu State Park and environs. The females have been tracked in the western Santa Monica Mountains, west of Malibu Canyon.
Sauvajot compared the Nortons’ home address and surrounding area to the well-known tracked lions and found no correlation.
Sauvajot does not find the news to be a big surprise for the new mountain lions to accidentally visit the Nortons’ property. Biologists will now keep a closer watch of these new lions who have migrated to the Malibu area.
Although some might be frightened by such an experience like the Nortons’, Kathleen was left awed.
“It is a sacred thing to have such reminders of the wild so close to our everyday life,” she said. “This experience has brought home to me that there is still magic to be found in such animals who live a life of the wilderness on this tiny island of wild ecosystem that they must share in the middle of Los Angeles.”