Officials believe that police panic led to the death of a mountain lion at H&H Carwash yesterday. Texas Department of Health Veterinarian, Ken Waldrup, had administered a second tranquilizer only 30 seconds before a police officer killed the cat. A minute more and the cat would have been asleep.
Dr. Waldrup is nationally respected and vastly experienced. Tranquilizing an animal - especially one with lots of adrenaline running - must be done carefully so as not to overdose the animal. The animal had exhibited no aggressive behavior toward people even though she had plenty of opportunities to do so. This was not an aggressive animal - but a fearful one. As soon as the lion was murdered, a videotape shows a very angry and distraught, Dr. Waldrup, screaming at the police, "No need for this!"
Here is the link to the KTSM video. If later on I can get the embedding code, I'll put it up on this blog.
Writer, environmental advocate, research scientist and currently Education Curator at the El Paso Zoo, Rick LoBello made this comment:
"Lions need low elevation areas during time of drought to seek water from springs. Here in El Paso we are losing these areas of habitat at an alarming rate, hurting lions and hundreds of other species of wildlife. Perhaps this mountain lion was looking for a drink or simply hungry. I would say she was an adult lion at least 5 years old. All of her life she had done her best to avoid our species. Today she came to know us first hand and now she is no more."
Sierra Club activist, Bill Addington, recalls an incident 3 years ago when a police officer responded to a cat by shooting at it. Fortunately, that shot missed. The attitude then as now is "Shoot it. It's a danger."
I have made an open records request asking the police for the incident report, a copy of documents showing what kind of training the officers receive to deal with this kind of situation, and documents showing the current Mountain Lion Protocol. We shall see what they give me.
There will be more later.
Meantime I have just written to my council rep, and am writing to the mayor as well. We MUST get the police to stop doing this.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing attention to this issue. I cannot get over this... El Paso needs to connect with the natural surroundings we are blessed with. I hope this will open people's eyes for the better.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing attention to this issue... This has me so upset. El Paso needs to connect with the natural world we are blessed with.
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