A devastating mountain lion attack at a California farm has left 15 alpacas dead — and their owner still grappling with the senseless killing spree.
Retired Navy nurse Julie Barr “never lost an animal to attack” prior to last week, when her once peaceful 340-acre farm — two hours north of San Francisco — was invaded by the apex predators over the span of three days, she told SF Gate.
Barr, who has spent close to 10 years raising alpacas, is still in disbelief over the slaughter, as the lions shockingly didn’t even eat any of their prey.
“It’s not like they just killed one and ate it. They just killed,” she explained to the outlet.
“They killed 15 animals. They’re not going to eat 15 animals. They came back two nights and killed.”
Her ranch, tucked away in the hills of Lake County, was first attacked on the night of Aug. 17.
Barr and her husband heard a crash, so the couple went to check on their alpaca enclosure, which had a section of its fence smashed out by the camel-like creatures, who were looking to escape death.
Barr’s neighbor, Jesse Cude, found “eight dead and four still breathing” the following morning and was forced to “put down like four or five of them,” he told the outlet.
That night, Cude stood guard with a shotgun, waiting for the lions to arrive at the sprawling property.
“I’m just sitting there being quiet and I see out of the corner of my eye two cats run right by me like 20 feet away. It’s straight towards the alpacas,” he recalled to the outlet.
“Big cats, probably 100 pounds, running at full speed right by me. Didn’t notice me, smell me, nothing.”
Two more alpacas died that night, and another two the following evening, raising the death toll to 15.
“We showed up after the first incident, 11 alpacas killed, three more injured as well as injuries to one of their livestock guardian dogs,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson Peter Tiara confirmed to the outlet.
“It was a mountain lion attack and we issued a non-lethal permit.”
Once the lions returned, the agency took action and “issued a lethal depredation permit to take one adult lion,” Tiara added.
Tiara explained what he believes was the reasoning behind the deadly encounters.
“If they get into a pen and there’s multiple animals, they’re in kill mode, right? As long as there’s movement, they’re taking out every animal they can get. It’s just a predatory response.”
Although experts have assured Barr that lions don’t kill for sport, the farm owner, who was raised by a family of hunters in West Virginia, is still trying to make sense of it all.
“We eat what we kill,” she said. “But this just seemed a shame.”
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