Page 3 Foothills Sentry MARCH 2025 Another local mountain lion killed Orange Park Acres Association’s annual meeting, Jan. 25 at Salem Lutheran Church, offered updates on area trails, protected open spaces, and ongoing positive relationships with the county and city. Association President Sherry Panttaja led the meeting and presented the community’s goals for the coming year. Laurel Maldonado (left) was the recipient of the Gary Bandy Award for 2024. The award is presented annually to a person who has contributed to the betterment of Orange Park Acres and its trail network. Maldonado is credited with saving residents hundreds of dollars for trash and manure collection by her thorough read of the contract with Waste Management that revealed errors in its fee structure. She, left, is congratulated by President Sherry Panttaja. OPAA board member Laura Thomas introduced the community partners that attended the meeting to share information and answer questions. Those partners included OC Parks, Supervisor Don Wagner, Orange City Manager Tom Kisela, Waste Management, Orange City Fire and Police Departments. The membership reelected three OPA Association board members whose three-year terms were up this year. Laura Thomas, Sherry Panttaja and Mary Nori Forrester were renewed with no opposition. The 2025 Board of Directors, from left, are David Clemson, Nancy Flathers, Kelley Chaplin, Laura Thomas, Laurel Maldonado, Sherry Panttaja, Mary Nori Forrester, David Hillman and Cindy Reina. OPA Association members, from left, Michael Schmidt, Peter Maimone, Russ Garcia and Michelle Schmidt engage in post-meeting conversation. OPA Association annual meeting brings neighbors together By Joel Robinson An older female mountain lion (F421) without a tracking collar was hit by a car along Santiago Canyon Road, between the northbound exit of the 241 Toll Road and Irvine Lake, immediately southeast of the proposed Orange Heights development site. The Jan. 21 fatality occurred between 6:30 and 7 p.m. I received a text from a canyon resident advising that she had just passed an animal control truck parked next to a dead mountain lion on Santiago Canyon Road. Real close to the toll road. It took me 22 days of phone calls, emails and public records requests to obtain the following information. The driver who hit the lion called it in and waited for the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to arrive. The lion died shortly after CHP and OC Animal Care responded to the incident. The driver left the scene with minimal damage to the vehicle. The California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW) environmental scientist Connor Basile arrived after the body had been relocated from the road to the OC Animal Care truck. Basile took photos and advised that someone from UC Davis would come to OC Animal Care for a more detailed examination. UC Davis wildlife biologist Lina Vu examined the lion, and told me that she planned to take the body to the lab in order to take blood samples and conduct a necropsy. Based on the time and location of the incident, it is surprising that the lion miscalculated the road crossing and got hit. Was the driver speeding, driving erratically or was the lion's judgement compromised by illness, injury, old age or some other distraction? Was she related to M317, the young male lion whose movements were tracked through the Orange Heights proposed development site, Irvine, Lake Mission Viejo and Newport Beach? After speaking with CHP and OC Animal Control, it does not appear that there was any effort to investigate the circumstances that led to this lion's death before the lion was removed from the scene of the incident. Down for the count A population viability analysis for the Santa Ana Mountains lion population found that there is a 11–21% risk of extirpation (local extinction) in the next 50 years due to demographic, stochastic, and environmental factors, and a near certain likelihood of extirpation within a median time of 12 years if inbreeding depression should occur. The California Fish and Game Commission is currently reviewing a petition to list the Southern California/Central Coast Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) of Mountain Lions as “threatened” under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). As a result, mountain lions in this proposed ESU are CESA-protected during the review period. The outdated 2005 Environmental Impact Report for the East Orange development project did not take into account the declining population of lions in the Santa Ana Mountains due to habitat fragmentation. CDFW recommended that the Irvine Company submit an application for an incidental take permit (ITP) for the mountain lion, but The Irvine Company declined. Learn more at eocwd.com Photos by Tony Richards
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