Of Swimming Holes
and Mountain Lions
M
ountain lion attacks on people do happen. Signs are
posted at most parks and open space preserves warning
trail users to be aware of their surroundings and how
to protect themselves by not running away and fi ghting back. The
tragic news is that since 1890 there have been about 20 attacks with
six fatalities. And in recent years, there have been more encounters
including a 2014 attack of 6-year old boy who was hiking with his
parents in Cupertino.
Typically, mountain lion habitat exists wherever deer are found
which means almost half of California and most of Santa Clara
County. The good news is that mountain lions, also known as
cougars, are mostly solitary animals, elusive and usually anxious to
avoid direct contact with people. Still it is best to be prepared and
take precautions when living in or visiting mountain lion territory.
In 1909, the community of Morgan Hill was devastated by the
deaths of Isola Kennedy and Earl Wilson from a mountain lion
attack near today’s Anderson Dam. Before swimming pools became
commonplace, most people frequented “swimming holes” to cool
off during the hot summer days of our inland valley. Out by Oak
Dell Park on Watsonville Road, Ma (Minnie) Kell had a baseball
field, a small campground and an area of Uvas Creek that she had
impounded to form a tree-shaded swimming hole. And there was a
swimming tank at the old Redwood Retreat that sourced its water
from Little Arthur Creek. At Gilroy Hot Springs, a concrete tank
was built in 1917 to replace the redwood baths, with bleachers for
onlookers to view the frolicking swimmers.
Yet it was to Coyote Gorge (later called Island Dell Park) that
Isola Kennedy, accompanied by five young students from her
Sunday School class at Machado School, decided to picnic and
then cool off in the waters of Coyote Creek on July 6, 1909.
On that warm afternoon, a rabid mountain lion pounced on
young Earl Wilson and Miss Kennedy went to his rescue using a
tree branch and then an eight-inch hat pin in trying to fend off the
attack. A couple of other boys ran for help and found Jack Conlan
who was surveying for the Bay Cities Water Company. He grabbed
his shotgun but was unable to get a shot off because it might have
hit Miss Kennedy. She fought the cougar valiantly until Conlan
returned with a rifle and killed the animal. Both Earl Wilson and
Isola Kennedy were badly mauled, but their injuries were not
considered to be life threatening, It was the rabies infection that
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GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
both victims succumbed to after weeks of painful suffering. Miss
Kennedy was a well-respected member of the newly incorporated
town of Morgan Hill. She was engaged to a dentist and was very
active in the Christian Women’s Temperance Union. On her tomb-
stone at Mt. Hope Cemetery is inscribed “Sacrificed her life battling
a lion to save some small boys.”
Today, the likelihood of being attacked by a mountain lion is
extremely low. There is a much greater chance of being struck by
lightning or dying from a pet animal attack. Personally I have never
seen a lion, only evidence of its hunting activity in the form of a
deer’s remains that I spotted while hiking off trail. And probably
that lion was watching me, so I thought that it might be could a
good idea to back away from the scene. Yet, I do regret never having
had the opportunity to see one of these magnificent animals in the
wild. An adult cougar is tan in color with black tipped ears and tail.
A male lion can weigh over 100 pounds, standing nearly three feet
in height at the shoulder and reaching six to 8 feet in length from
nose to tail tip. It is a majestic animal that personifies strength,
with powerful graceful movements and will only yield to bears and
humans. When running, a cougar can bound up to 40 feet and they
can leap 15 feet into a tree and reach speeds of 50 mph in a sprint.
Robert Redford, in an introduction to the book, “Cougar: The
American Lion” stated that “the cougar’s solitary and stealthy life-
style feeds its mystery. And, unfortunately, mystery breeds fear,
myth and misinformation. Since our European ancestors arrived
on American shores 500 hundred years ago, we have waged war on
larger predators - grizzly bears, wolves, jaguars, coyotes and cougars.
Only small populations (except for the most adaptable coyote)
survive in their original habitats and continued encroachment by the
onslaught of our human development threaten those that remain.”
Mountain lions once occupied the entire United States from
coast to coast, but today they are only found in the West, with a
small remnant population in Florida.
A lion maintains a hunting territory averaging 100 square miles
in which it is constantly on the move, hunting usually from dusk
to dawn. This territorial nature makes the relocation of lions very
difficult, so problem animals are usually shot. And the size of their
range makes the continuing fragmentation of the landscape by high-
ways or housing problematic for their survival. Most likely, the main
cause of lion mortality is becoming road kill. Recent efforts to build
MAY/JUNE 2016
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Written By Mike Monroe