‘Didn’t want anything to do with us’: Orphaned mountain lions released near Ramona

They had learned to hunt and doubled in size. After nearly six months of care at the Ramona Wildlife Center, it was time for a pair of orphaned mountain lions to be released. 

On a patch of public land north of Ramona earlier this month, Angela Hernandez-Cusick watched with a group of wildlife experts as the door to each cub’s carrier was opened. Both cougars stepped out and dashed off. 

It was just what everyone had hoped for.

“Thankfully they did everything right,” said Hernandez-Cusick, wildlife rehabilitation supervisor at the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Wildlife Center, who attended the Sept. 18 release. “They ran out of the crate and didn’t want anything to do with us, which is the behavior we wanted them to do.”

The cubs had been found wandering without their mother near Poway in late March. They were trapped by team members of the UC Davis California Carnivores Program in coordination with state wildlife officials and brought to the wildlife center.

Since 2020, the center has cared for 16 mountain lions as well as thousands of other wild animals from baby songbirds to coyotes to bears. The center’s goal is to release animals back into their native habitat whenever possible. Each one is given veterinary attention and undergoes rehabilitation training. Key lessons for the mountain lions included hunting behaviors and maintaining a “natural wariness” of people, Humane Society officials say.

The cubs were thought to be 4 or 5 months old when they arrived. Typically, cubs will stay with their mothers for one to two years to learn how to hunt and other skills. The orphans were old enough that they didn’t need to be bottle fed, but still young enough to be considered good candidates for release.

They just needed to learn how to survive on their own.

There’s a limit to what they can be taught, of course. Mountain lions are hunters, carnivores, apex predators.

“Out in the wild, a mountain lion’s primary source of food is deer or venison,” Hernandez-Cusick said. “So we want to ensure we are exposing them to that as much as possible. We can’t obviously give them live deer, so we do provide either road kill or sometimes donations from local hunters.”

The cats also were fed live rodents or small birds to help them learn to hunt. For the past several months, the two lived in an outdoor enclosure roughly the size of four home garages.

Out in the wild, cougars hunt deer, rabbits and small birds like quail, “so we definitely want to make sure we set them up for success,” she said.

At the wildlife center, staffers worked hard to make sure the cougars didn’t get too comfortable with humans. They used visual barriers, sometimes donning camouflage masks and suits, and tried to stay quiet when they were near the animals.

Wild animals at the center aren’t typically given names — but during their stay in Ramona, one of the mountain lions was nicknamed “ear tag” since his brother’s ears were unadorned. Before they were released, each animal was microchipped, fitted with a tracking color and tagged.

“These two did really well in our care,” Hernandez-Cusick said. “And we were very happy to send them back out to the wild.”