Parents of cyclist killed by mountain lion sue SoCal wilderness park

[gunsmith]

I think this is gun related as it is illegal to carry firearms in this park
Of course MOD's if you disagree then lock or delete (I miss roundtable)

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050326-0336-ca-mountainlion-lawsuit.html

Parents of cyclist killed by mountain lion sue SoCal wilderness park
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ASSOCIATED PRESS

3:36 a.m. March 26, 2005

SANTA ANA – The parents of a 35-year-old man killed by a mountain lion as he was repairing his bike on a wilderness park trail last year have sued the park's operators.

Mark Reynolds of Foothill Ranch was attacked Jan. 8, 2004, when he stopped to fix his mountain bike's chain along Cactus Ridge Trail in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. AdvertisementAuthorities determined the cougar that killed Reynolds also severely injured another rider later that same day. Anne Hjelle was saved by a riding companion who yelled for help as she fought a tug of war with the animal over Hjelle's body.

Orange County sheriff's deputies later tracked down the cougar and shot it to death.

In a suit filed March 16 in Orange County Superior Court, Donna and Joseph Reynolds of St. Joseph, Mo., argued that county officials should have known the park was in "dangerous condition."

County officials declined to comment. Reynolds' death was the sixth caused by a mountain lion in California since 1994.

A similar suit was filed against the county by the parents of Laura Small, a 5-year-old girl who was mauled and permanently disfigured by a cougar in Ronald W. Caspers Park in 1986. That suit was eventually settled for $1.5 million.

Soon after the mauling of Laura and a 6-year-old boy that same year, officials began posting signs at the entrances to all county parks. The signs state: "Mountain lions may be present and are unpredictable. Be cautious. They have been known to attack without warning. Your safety cannot be guaranteed."

 

[Selfdfenz]

Interesting.
Thanks gunsmith.

It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. Will the Parks Dept. fight or not?

I'm about 100% sure as long as Park policy is to host populations of MLs yet not allow me a selfdfenz option I'd not go there. I sure would not take my kids to one of those places.

Cali tax payers should point out to the Parks department that their parks have taken on the color of "wildlife refuges" where, for any number of reasons, the animals are protected to the extent that the places are off limits to humans...... and as such no longer require as much in the way of taxpayer support. So RIF some park staff.

S-

 

[BlkHawk73]

Doubt this will get very far. Just a lawyer looking for some exposure and a quick buck. Besdies what dos one expect to be in a wilderness park, cuddely kittens and lace doilies? C'mon now! Just shows the greedy ignorance people of this country are using more and more.

 

[Tory]

Clueless or callous?

Let's start at the beginning:

1. A grown man (read: adult);

2. Knowingly and voluntarily enters the "Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, where;

3. He rncounters a known major predator on its turf, the said wilderness park; and

4. Loses that encounter.

In what way, shape, manner or form is that anyone's fault, other than the careless bicyclist's? If you have any answer other than "None," I want to hear it.

Ergo, his parents' lawsuit is either:

1. A shallow and self-serving reaction by people incapable of accepting their son's death as a not-unforseeable act of nature; or

2. A callous attempt to make money off of said death.

I'm voting for #1, but I'm feeling generous this morning....

 

[Silver Bullet]

Some years back I was hiking around a lake in Colorado, somewhere a bit southwest of Rocky Mountain National Park. About a quarter mile into the hike I came across a sign that stated, among other things, 1) beware of mountain lions and 2) no firearms allowed.

 

[Windhover45]

Much ado about nothing

Gunsmith,

I'm not sure why you are doing this, but if you were paying attention enough to dig up the news of the lawsuit filed on March 26, 2005, then you knew or should have known that the lawsuit was dropped a few days later.


March 29, 2005
Cougar attack lawsuit dropped

35-year-old Mark Reynolds was attacked and half-eaten by a mountain lion, while he crouched to fix his bicycle along Cactus Ridge Trail on January 8, 2004. The same day, the same cougar attacked Anne Hjelle, who was rescued. Reynolds's family sued Orange County, California, but dropped the suit in the face of pressure from Reynolds's fellow cyclists, who were worried that the lawsuit would provoke the county into prohibiting wilderness cycling. (Rachana Rathi, "Mauled Cyclist's Family Drops Lawsuit", LA Times, Mar. 29; Rachana Rathi, "Fatally Mauled Biker's Parents Sue O.C.", LA Times, Mar. 26; LA Times Editorial, "Joy, and Danger, of Wilderness", Mar. 27; another website summary of lion attacks; Dan Koeppel, "The jaws of death", Mountain Bike, Summer 2004). Wildlife officials destroyed the cougar responsible for the attacks, but California law otherwise prohibits hunting or killing mountain lions.

 

[Rebar]

It's the cyclist's own fault, he should have dialled 911 and the police would have saved him, right?

 

[beerslurpy]

The problem is that I wouldnt lose such an encounter in FL, but I would in CA.

 

[Talon]

Well, this could all be solved by passing the "Scary Looking Wildlife Ban" in the State of California. Duh.

 

[El Tejon]

We just need a law requiring silly Lefties to stay at home and watch television. This way they will not be mauled by critters which should have been shot years ago and will not be able to vote to destroy my freedom.

 

[Tory]

Failure to grasp the concept

"....mauled by critters which should have been shot years ago..."

What part of "wilderness area" do you not comprehend?

Real wilderness areas are complete ecosystems with the full range of indigenous flora and fauna. That means lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Or is your idea of Nature a paved walk with beer machines every 50 feet?

 

[beerslurpy]

The problem is when the legislature uses the concept of wilderness areas to create disarmament zones very close to human habitation. Somehow I doubt this guy threw his bike in the back of a humvee and drove hundreds of miles from civilization just so he could be amongst the wolverines and lions. It is more likely that someone designated a "wilderness area" that buts up against his home, and a mountain lion probably got released into that area a few years back. You do know that we raise these animals in captivity and then rerelease them, right?

There are all sorts of little pockets of wilderness in my neighborhood, populated by panthers, snakes, gators and even human predators once in a while. The difference is that I can carry a gun in all of these undeclared areas, while someone in CA who has the misfortune to wander into an official one has to be disarmed like a herbivore.

 

[El Tejon]

Tory, they paid bounties for the heads of pumas years ago. It needs to be re-implemented, Druids not withstanding.

Even if they do not re-implement the paying of bounties, people need to realize that nature is red in tooth and claw and defend themselves.

 

[316SS]

Tory wrote:

Or is your idea of Nature a paved walk with beer machines every 50 feet?

No, that's called a "golf cart path."

Seriously, wilderness is wild. Wildlife is wild. You and I, unarmed, in said wilderness, are cuisine.

316

 

[Tory]

It's called "BALANCE of Nature" for a reason...

"Tory, they paid bounties for the heads of pumas years ago."

Thus nearly exterminating the puma, while causing an unnatural spike in the populations it controlled - and others. Like deer, which spread Lyme Disease in my part of the world and yours, and coyote, which carry rabies and attack pets and even children here. Great plan; thanks for sharing.....

"It needs to be re-implemented, Druids not withstanding." See above, irrelevant references notwithstanding.


"Wildlife is wild."

Precisely my point.

"You and I, unarmed, in said wilderness, are cuisine."

A slight exaggeration. A more accurate - and accurately punctuated - statement would be:

You and I, unaware and unprepared in said wilderness, are cuisine.

There's a phrase for those who aren't aware and prepared, or lucky:

Natural selection.......

 

[moby clarke]

Amen Tory.

 

[Mauserguy]

I work about a quarter mile from where that attack happened. When they developed the Foothill Ranch and Rancho Santa Marguerita areas they maximized their sales revenue by building all of the houses on the hilltops and calling the washes and creak beds wildlife areas. Basically, this guy died within screaming distance of a realy nice neighborhood.

Part of the problem is that all of these eco nuts have convinced people that nature is nice- it is not, it is brutal and cruel. I have a lady friend who joined the Outdoors Club, a group loosely associated with the Sierra Club. She went on one hike with this gang of idiots and slipped on a rock, twisting her ankle and scraping her knee. Those morons gave her a bandage and left. They wanted to look at the pretty flowers, so they left the injured woman behind. These Sierra Club asshats have no respect for nature. She had to hobble back to the trailhead alone.

You must have respect for nature. You must have a level of fear if you are going to go any distance into the woods. If you don't you will get eaten.
Mauserguy

 

[Joejojoba111]

Seriously, don't joke about messing with wildlife parks, I really, really support those. I think they should be bigger and there should be more, and if stupid hikers and ***** poachers keep going into them, then they should have 10' razor-wire fences with armed security patrols to keeps humans out.


"The problem is when the legislature uses the concept of wilderness areas to create disarmament zones very close to human habitation."


The PROBLEM is when Human habitation moves into the wilderness areas! Freaks all want to hear birds chirping, but only during certain hours, or they have to poison all the nuisance birds. And they love to see deer, but not if the deer eat their roses, or you have to shoot all the deer. And my those cougars are beautiful and rare animals, but they'll just have to go too.

And these 'environment loving' people who live 2 hours drive away from their jobs drive 2 hours to their job each day, because they love the environment. ARRGGHH.

They need to re-institute the annual human hunts, they're overpopulated for their environments!

 

[XLMiguel]

I heartily concur with the "what part of the 'wild' in wildlife do you not underwstand?" crowd. I have a buddy in the Park Service, she has many, many stories that are just too stupid not to be believed. Snake bites - 80+% of the time the recipient was either harassing or trying to catch reptile in question. People think the bears are Yogi and Boo-boo. She told about people who wanted them to take down the "Deer Crossing" signs so the deer wouldn't cross in the designated area and get hit by cars, or others who wanted them to move rocks so the trail wouldn't be so hard . . . .

Reminds me of he saying, "Before you go unarmed into paradise, make damned sure that's where you are."

 

[Orthonym]

ah, yes, Jjj,

you may have a point there. I do think that we might be approaching a situation in which there are more humans than there are good and useful things for them to do.

[Orthonym thinks: What have *I* done to justify my oxygen consumption lately? Umm, let's not go there.]

 

[Tory]

My favorite "blissninnie meets nature story" is

both old - about 35 years old - and tragic. Not because someone died a needless and excruciating death, but because the deceased was not responsible for his death and the responsible parties were free to spawn.

Two zipheads take their young child (lesson # 2: Cretins should not be allowed to breed) into YELLOWSTONE National Park. What is Yellowstone most known for? Right, HOT SPRINGS AND GEYSERS!

What do these irresponsible "parents" do in the NATURAL environment filled with those famous hot springs surrounded by slippery clay/rock? Riiiiight, they IGNORE the signs expressly warning everyone that this IS a natural area; no, there aren't guardrails; and stay on the trail, far away from the slippery edges of the boiling cauldrons and geysers. They also let the child wander off.

You know what happened just from the premise. The child - victim of its parents' incompetence - disappears. Parents go nuts, can't find child, call rangers.

Rangers eventually find some calcined bones in a cauldron and, at risk to themselves, retrieve what VERY little is left of the child.

Parents blame the NPS and demand walkways with railings in the park.

So, if you go to a "natural area" and find it looking railed in like the ticket line at a rock concert, you know why. If you go to a "wilderness area" and find no animal larger than a deer or more dangerous than a spider, you also know why. As part of our society's demands to pander to the least competent, natural features are destroyed so cretins can wander aimlessly around in them, listening to walkmen, yapping on cell phones and playing video games in complete safety from their own stupidity.

They call it "protective." I call it interfering with natural selection and polluting the gene pool.

 

[Hayley]

"Wilderness park", created to perpetuate the "wilderness". Why isn't this thrown out of court?

 

[gunsmith]

windover/much ado

I always carry in wilderness areas, stupid signs telling not to notwithstanding.
It wasn't any effort at all to "dig up" this article, we here at highroad disscussed this & other cougar attacks and bear attacks as well.
this stuff is interesting as the anti's always tell me I don't "need" a gun because there are no dangerous animals in SF (bears,lions,tigers oh my)
yet when I go into the woods (yosemite and CA parks) they say I can't have one even though I may need it.
I think thats why the parents should be suing ,if I had $ & time I would.

P.S when I googled "mountain lion attack" "lawsuit dropped" didn't show up.
I understand it IS easier to criticize others threads then to post one yourself.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I think this is gun related as it is illegal to carry firearms in this park

That has to be about the most backwards reasoning I have seen in a long time. What is the connection? Exclusion of the subject hardly justifies it being relevant.

Given that it was California, even if the park did allow guns, there would have been little chance that the rider would have had a permit to carry a gun and apparently he wasn't carrying on in spite of the no guns policy.

Not only not armed with a gun, the biker apparently wasn't carrying any other type of weapons such as knives, clubs, or pepper spray, thing that would be allowed in the park. In other words, he wasn't prepared for any sort of self defense.

 

[Joejojoba111]

Bicycles are treasure troves of improvised weapons. Just the accesories alone are impressive, pump, lock (chain or bolt/club), the entire bike probably weighs 20lbs so it's a bulky shield.

If he wasn't prepared for self-defence it's mentality that's at fault, not equipment or lack thereof. Also nothing wrong with hands and feet, hell he's even wearing gloves and hardened shoes. Anything you can put in your hand is just a bonus.

Hey, maybe he fought well, but just lost fair and square.