Parent Reports Mountain Lion Near Preschool

Authorities believe a mountain lion was spotted prowling about 300 feet from a group of Ojai children enjoying a midmorning snack time Wednesday outside their preschool.

Parent Michael Taylor-Ladd said he watched the large mountain lion languidly walk across a nearby field before disappearing into bushes behind homes while his 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Kristen, and about a dozen other children and their parents had juice and cookies on an outdoor patio of the Grand Avenue preschool.

“I was just watching it, not realizing it was a dangerous thing,” Taylor-Ladd said of the animal, which he estimated weighed 100 to 120 pounds. “Then I thought, this isn’t good.”

The adults quickly ushered their children inside and called authorities.

Members of the private Ventura County Humane Society, county Animal Regulation Department, Sheriff’s Department and state Department of Fish and Game searched for signs of the animal without success.

But animal regulation Officer Bob Wisma said because Taylor-Ladd is involved in the rehabilitation of wildlife, it is improbable that he misidentified a much smaller bobcat as a mountain lion.

A search of the neighborhood and nearby backyards around the preschool also yielded no sign of the animal, Wisma said.

“One gentleman did tell us his dog was acting kind of weird and wouldn’t go outside,” Wisma said.

Mountain lions are encroaching on suburban areas with increasing frequency as both the human and wild cat populations expand.

A mountain lion was killed in Fillmore in 1995 after the animal attacked an 85-pound dog that was rescued by its owner. A year earlier, a jogger was killed by a mountain lion near Sacramento.

The Ojai preschool is adjacent to an orchard that backs onto the rugged Los Padres National Forest.

“It’s not that surprising,” said Carina Solecki, mother of a child at the parent-run cooperative preschool. “We’re backed up to the hills. It’s a wildlife freeway.”