About those lion sightings

Wednesday's Morning Buzz reprinted an email from the president of the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council warning residents that a dog had fallen prey to the mountain lion (or lions) that roams the canyons. Today Madame Prez sent a second email pooh-poohing the report:

I have just spoken to Rory Fitzpatrick (again) re the purported mountain lion sightings (and dog attacks/missing dogs). He has told me that he has spoken to the animal control folks as well as the Runyan [sic] rangers and that there have been NO mountain lion sightings. There have been many coyote sightings as usual and apparently the authorities believe that the dog/s taken were taken by coyotes, not mountain lions.

Anastasia Mann
President
HHWNC

Fitzpatrick is the chief field deputy for Councilman Tom LaBonge. The hillside correspondent who forwarded the email to me also sent along info circulating in the hills today about a family of bobcats spotted at Hollywood Reservoir—with photos:

Last year, I received multiple reports of bobcat sightings on both sides of Barham. Here are four photographs I took last December near the lake. They show three different bobcats (I observed them following each other near the water line from the right to the left). I sent these photos to Councilman Tom LaBonge that day. Since I had received a previous report of a mother and two cubs, I assumed these were the same animals. That meant an adult male was also in the vicinity... About a month ago, a large bobcat was killed by traffic on Barham. I personally saw its body early that morning while driving my husband to the airport. So by my count, we have at least three now full-grown bobcats in the area. Their territory are large, usually several square miles. Earlier last year, there was also a very credible sighting of a mountain lion by the pumping station near the lake. Sincerely,

Anne Marie Lardeau

More photographic evidence after the jump: