Mountain lions have Coastsiders on edge

Statistically speaking, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, you are 1,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a mountain lion. While they haven’t personally been attacked, Bob and Irma Mitton must feel incredibly unlucky today. Three of their goats have been killed by mountain lions in the last month, in three separate attacks on their Pescadero homeplace. They’re tired, exasperated and they are also mesmerized by one of nature’s top-of-the-food-chain predators seen up close with their own eyes. “It was the most amazing, beautiful, majestic animal I’ve ever seen,” Irma Mitton said of a lion she saw from a distance of three feet early in the morning of March 10. The Mittons are just two of several Coastsiders who have reported close sightings of the usually reclusive mountain lions in the last month. Since March 7, there have been at least nine sightings reported in La Honda, Pescadero and Half Moon Bay to either the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office or the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The latest sighting was at 9:35 p.m. Monday night, near the intersection of Miramontes Point Road and Highway 1, not far from an earlier March sighting. There was also an eventful night on Miramontes Point Road. The Sheriff’s Office reported multiple sightings of a mountain lion about 7:30 p.m. on March 20, not far from the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay. But the Mittons have had the most hair-raising encounters...more