3 marsupials found dead at SF Zoo, a mountain lion cub is a suspect – SF Gate

By Amy Graff, SFGATE

Updated

2: 39 pm PDT, Friday, June 19, 2020

Two wallaroos and a red kangaroo had been stumbled on unnecessary on the San Francisco Zoo final week, and findings indicate a neighborhood wild carnivore is responsible, the zoo confirmed in an announcement Friday.

In a uncommon match, a lost mountain lion cub changed into seen wandering the streets of S.F. a pair of cases at night final week and changed into captured by Animal Care & Preserve watch over on Thursday (study extra on SFGATE). The zoo is investigating whether the younger cat may per chance per chance even maintain been the perpetrator and entered the Australian Walkabout snarl.

Zara McDonald, a biologist with the Bay Reveal Puma Project, said if the zoo finds that the mountain lion killed the marsupials, this may per chance per chance relieve indicate how the animal entered the city.

Consultants hypothesized the city’s fresh puma customer came from San Mateo County, because the wildlands around Crystal Springs Reservoir and Sweeney Ridge are home to a complete lot of mountain lions. A direct over with to the zoo would relieve verify the animal’s route. “In a mode it’s portion of the story,” McDonald said.

The mountain lion cub is currently below examination on the Oakland Zoo and shall be launched in the wild.

Consultants identified the 50-pound animal as a male of about 14 to 15 months extinct, an age when cubs are steadily peaceable below the care of a mother. McDonald said it be possible that even a mountain lion of this dimension and age can maintain killed the marsupials.

She explained that below uncommon instances mountain lions kill a pair of animals with out the draw of eating them and is behavior in most cases known as “surplus killing.”

“It’s no longer overall, however there maintain been a huge collection of cases over the years where we’ve had pumas trudge into enclosures with animals and kill heaps of them, and maybe bask in one,” McDonald said.

McDonald recalled an incident in the East Bay a complete lot of years prior to now, when a cougar jumped into an enclosure retaining goats and sheep.

“The puma figured out a mode into the tip after which received caught inner. He killed a bunch of them and only ate one,” she said. “At final the puma received out.”

In uncommon cases, pumas in quest of unique habitat by likelihood dawdle into San Francisco. Over time, there maintain been occasional sightings, in most cases around Lake Merced, however most regularly the animals rapid realize they devise no longer are looking to be in the city and head relieve south.

McDonald said video pictures of the mountain lion captured on surveillance cameras unearths this animal changed into confused and skittish, and this behavior is what you’d ask in a cub separated from his mother.

“I feel once it came into the dense characteristic of the city, the first video pictures captured clearly presentations this lion changed into confused,” said McDonald. “That you just might report from it’s vitality, it looked unlucky. It will dawdle all over the save and stop low to the bottom, which is a behavior that you view in these cats after they’re skittish and feel threatened.”

Officers from S.F. Animal Care and Preserve watch over and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife cornered the disoriented animal at Fourth and Channel streets advance Oracle Park early Thursday and vulnerable a natty receive to gather it. The draw changed into to gather the animal with out tranquilizing it.

“Now we maintain got been monitoring the lion’s movements since Tuesday, and felt that because he or she changed into younger and inexperienced that there changed into no straightforward, safe exit route from the city,”  Deb Campbell, a spokesperson for SF Animal Care & Preserve watch over, said. “We had been shy that the lion shall be hit by a vehicle, or starve.”

Amy Graff is SFGATE’s Recordsdata Editor. E-mail her: agraff@sfgate.com.