Tucson Region

G&F won't hunt mountain lion

A mountain lion that attacked a dog being walked by its owner Sunday will not be hunted, Arizona Game and Fish officials said. The incident happened about 4:20 p.m. on private property near Snyder Road and the Mount Lemmon Highway, said Bob Miles, an agency spokesman. The attack was a freak incident and game officers are not planning to hunt the lion down. Mike Popovich was walking home with both his dogs, an 80-pound shepherd lab mix named Dakota and a smaller husky named Khumba. "I got up the driveway, not very far, and I looked up and saw a mountain lion running right toward us," Popovich said, laughing at the memory. "All I could remember thinking was, 'Oh my gosh, there's a mountain lion and he's coming right at us.' I mean, that cat was coming head on." Dakota, described by Popovich as a well-behaved dog, wasn't leashed as was Khumba. Dakota charged the lion, but was overpowered and thrown on his back. Barking and crying, Dakota tried to fight the lion off as Khumba tried to jump into the fight, with Popovich yelling, holding on to Khumba and trying to scare the lion off. In seconds, the lion jumped off Dakota and ran away into the desert, Popovich said. "I thought the dog would be full of holes but he didn't have too many wounds," he said. Dakota required two inches worth of stitches and walked with a limp for a few days but is doing much better, he said. Meanwhile, Popovich's wife has put out signs warning neighbors to keep an eye out for the lion. A Game and Fish wildlife manager went to the scene and talked to Popovich, confirming that the attack had happened, Miles said. That's not always the case. Though he didn't have numbers, Miles said Game and Fish has received several calls of mountain lion attacks on pets that were probably attacks by coyotes. "Do we receive reports like that? Are we able to confirm them? Most of the time not," he said. "In that Sabino Canyon area, we're getting pretty routine sightings." Popovich agreed with the decision no to hunt the lion, particularly in an area like Sabino Canyon where animals and humans share the land and the lion did not stalk or harm anyone. "I think it was just one of those situations and nobody really wanted to be there, and this sort of had to play itself out," he said. "If I saw him out there again, then obviously I'd be worried and hope that the officials trap him and move him to another area."