Something about that story set off my B.S. detector at about 6 p.m. today … which may very well have been when investigators were making up their minds that there wasn’t a lick of proof that the guy who fell down a ravine in Foothills Park actually got bumped by a big cat. From Mercurynews.com:
The report of an attack, which came from an unidentified 50-year-old Portola Valley man on Sunday, touched off a swift investigation that brought three state game wardens, a professional tracker and a team of hounds to the 1,400-acre park on Monday. Meanwhile, a forensics expert in Sacramento examined the victim’s shirt for telltale signs such as fur or saliva.
All came up empty, leaving officials to conclude that the man’s alarming story was mistaken.
“He believed, I think truly, that he’d been attacked,” Palo Alto police Agent Dan Ryan said. “We have just not been able to substantiate that with the science.”
No wonder it seemed so damned unlikely … though this of course killed my theory for why it might have actually happened (hey, I spent a solid six seconds coming up with that theory).
A guy on Channel 2 News just said the hiker’s shirt had no trace of an attack — no hair, no rips, no punctures. But he also noted the hiker did not recant his story.
Strange, I can’t imagine why anyone would make up a story like that unless he’s just obsesively bored or something and wanted to regale the neighbors. They say professional trackers were brought in. Surely if there were a cougar aroung they would find some kind of evidence of it, perhaps even the animal itself. Anything? Maybe the guy should have said he saw bigfoot.
Maybe this was the scenario: mountain lion is stalking deer nearby and gives chase … deer leaps out of the brush and hits this guy w/the cat hot on the deer’s tail. Hiker and deer-pursuing cat tumble down the ravine at the same time.
It would be an amazing coincidence, of course, but it would tie up all the questions … like no tears or cat hair in the guy’s shirt. If he’s not a lunatic making it all up and really was hit, it would have had to be something big enough to knock him off the trail. Of course the “cat” could’ve been something else too.
I’ve seen some pretty fat ground squirrels up there…
Does anyone know if they are still intending on tracking and hunting a mountain lion down? If a lion had been/is found and killed, and the man’s story determined to be false, I would hope that he would be prosecuted under some kind of animal cruelty law.