The mountain lion sleeps tonight
This happened [my emphasis]:
A mountain lion forced residents of Santa Monica and their tiny pets indoors as officials scoured the area for the apex predator.
The Santa Monica Police Department descended on the residential area of 14th and Montana Friday morning after someone allegedly saw the animal in the area. …
The mountain lion was first located sleeping in a residential backyard, and did not move from that location for several hours, a SMPD spokesperson told The California Post. …
After about six hours, the animal was reportedly hit with a tranquilizer, sending it running through the neighborhood. Officials were seen in a video chasing after the big cat in an attempt to wrangle and capture it. …
Finally, nine hours after it was first reported, the animal was successfully tranquilized and removed.
Just a few years ago I was staying with a friend in the suburbs of Los Angeles. It was April, and I went for a walk in a very built-up area of many homes. And yet I saw a mountain lion walking through a group of bushes not more than 50 yards away from me. I turned and slowly walked in another direction, heart pounding but trying not to transmit fear although I was quite frightened.
When that happened to me, it made me think of this old Kingston Trio song from my youth. It’s a California song:
And now of course we have to have the song “Wimoweh,” later called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I prefer this older Weavers version (1955) to the later pop version by the Tokens:
Here is the original South African group who created the song. You can see how closely the Weavers stuck to this version:
Here’s a wonderful version of Wimoweh. Watching it sung so joyfully brings me joy too, whether or not I actually like the song.
https://youtu.be/erCq44KSEHQ?si=oYqpraNUT3GWQP4n
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion, sleeps off, the dart.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion, sleeps off, the dart.
Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom.
Fortunately for Jim, he didn’t let Marlin talk him into wearing the red shirt.
Somehow I’ve got the notion it’s a lullaby. So, other such for comparisons.
https://youtu.be/Q445ZMY-jWw (Gershwin)
https://youtu.be/8CzEKJMXeP0 (Faure, Dolly Suite)
https://youtu.be/ULnCsIFfa7E (Ravel, le nom de Faure)
In the jungle, the darkest jungle, the lion gets the dart.
Hush my darling, don’t fret, my darling, the lion got the dart.
Weem a wok a week a wok….
In my area they just put up signs that say a mountain lion has been spotted on these coastal trails. Be wary and good luck.
Of course, the big killer that we have, are our rocky shorelines, and thousands of tourists climbing on those rocks along with rough seas. Those that can’t keep the adage, “Don’t turn your back on the ocean” in mind, routinely get swept off and drown. Probably after getting their head bashed into a rock.
First, it was the frightening bat blots.
Then, it was cannibalism in the Andes.
Now, it’s mountain lions at the back door.
Like, the politics wasn’t scary enough?
Lions, and tigers, and bears, Oh my!
Fear is a choice, albeit one that is typically so deeply ingrained as to make you think and feel, when you find yourself in perilous circumstances, that you have no control over it. But you can control it. You have to work at controlling it and it’s hard but anyone can do it. Predators in the wild can sense fear and it often excites them and stimulates their prey drive. You did the right thing neo. You controlled your fear. I hope you backed away from the lion, though. Never turn your back on a predator, especially one that seems as though it’s sizing you up for a meal.
My work with my border collies is very instructive in this regard. Have you ever seen a border collie herding a flock of sheep? A well-trained BC stalks the sheep like wolves on the hunt. Untrained, it would attack and kill the sheep. You have work very diligently with border collie puppies to “train” the attack instinct out of them while retaining the prey drive. Fortunately they’re so smart they can learn this, although with varying degrees of skill. Other than that everything a border collie does on the field with sheep is what wolves do when closing in on a prey animal — except making the kill. Instead it is trained to move the sheep where you want them to go and ultimately to bring them back to you. That’s also a wolf move: you’re the alpha and the border collie wants to bring the sheep to you so you can make the kill.
All in all, it’s a beautiful thing.
This post was fun. I didn’t know anything about the history of the tune.
The best part? LA has a $100M boondoggle project to build a wildlife bridge across the 101 freeway, so that mountain lions can access more backyards.
Note Cougars are not endangered and they are beautiful and amazing, but they are apex predators who belong … in the mountains.
I am a big fan of Osibisa!
Remember last summer, I got a cougar on camera walking around my truck and one, probably the same one, killed a deer in the neighbor’s driveway.
Since then, the only cat is a fluffy house cat that cruises through about 3am every few nights. Mowing used to produce a vole stampede. Since the cat and a pair of Ravens showed up, no voles, none. The Ravens have a nest. They used to fly around together but now we only see them one at a time going to and from the nest.
Here is a short video from last month as they are surfing the wind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEcC8Xk-gc
Ladysmith Black Mambaza recorded Winoweh live with the Mint Juleps forever ago. I think it’s the best I’ve heard, and I’m old enough to remember Miriam Makema’s version. Both are worth the search.
This reads like a murder mystery even though you know “whodunnit” from the start.
The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator’s Deadly Return to Suburban America
https://a.co/d/0duSoOjF
I suspect that until the mountain lion can tranquilize its prey and take it away and release it somewhere else, it will remain a very capable and dangerous predator, but not the apex one.
Chases Eagle, thanks for the ravens video; that was neat!
Oops – I was on the wrong thread for my commentary on the song.
https://thenewneo.com/2026/06/02/open-thread-6-2-2026/#comment-2853436
I discovered the error while appending this comment:
Seeger was a full-fledged card-carrying Communist during the 1940s, but broke with the CPUSA when Stalin’s atrocities finally became known.
After reading through the Wikipedia article (allowing some for the leftist bias of the platform), it seems to me he was one of the “honest socialists” like Orwell, who supported the causes that arose from legitimate needs for reform, but rejected the underlying Marxism-Leninism tyranny that the Soviets embraced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Seeger
At the time, one of Seeger’s critics was “the Council for Democracy (an organization that Friedrich and Henry Luce’s right-hand man, C. D. Jackson, Vice President of Time magazine, had founded “to combat all the Nazi, fascist, communist, pacifist” antiwar groups in the United States).”
Most conservatives have noticed that, in the intervening decades, somehow the first two groups got separated from the third as political labels.
“Pacifism” is the thing that’s not-like-the-others, but IIRC authentic anti-war pacifists were often used as a front by the other three ideologists to deter the Allies during the war, and then by the USSR afterwards to obstruct meddling in its own wars.
If I have any of that wrong, I gladly accept clarification.
I believe that the Soviets gave a lot of financing to the “Peace Movement” in the USA, as a tool of subversion, during and after the Vietnam War.
Dalton Trumbo published Johnny Got His Gun, circa 1940, a book espousing pacifism. In early 1941, the Almanac Singers—who had Pete Seeger as a member—-published Songs for John Doe, which had a number of songs preaching for pacifism and against US entry into WW2.
After Hitler’s invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, Pete Seeger and his cohorts withdrew Songs for John Doe from circulation. Pacifism for the US no longer fit the party line, so Pete and the Almanac Singers were no longer pacifists. Ditto with Trumbo and Johnny Got His Gun. During WWs2, Dalton Trumbo turned into the FBI the names of genuine pacifists who inquired about Johnny Got His Gun. Sounds a little inconsistent with Dalton’s “courage” regarding his refusal to name names to the HUAC.
Like Dalton Trumbo’s Pete Seeger’s “honesty” regarding pacifism and the US entering into WW2 was not honesty of pacifism beliefs, but honestly changing one’s viewpoints according to what the party line was at the moment.
Pete’s condemnation of Stalin? IIRC, that occurred rather late—in the 21st century when he made a public statement about Stalin.
I read it once but do not have a link for it, but in his later years, Pete Seeger made the point that his father left the Communists after the 1939 Nonaggression Pact that Stalin signed w Germany. Pete implied that was a better path than he had followed.