{"id":460633,"date":"2026-09-11T15:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460633\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T15:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T15:18:15","slug":"after-a-hiker-was-airlifted-off-a-san-jose-trail-mountain-lion-warnings-go-up-across-the-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460633\/","title":{"rendered":"After a Hiker Was Airlifted Off a San Jose Trail, Mountain Lion Warnings Go Up Across the Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Somewhere in the foothills east of San Jose, a mountain lion has no idea it triggered a helicopter rescue.<\/p>\n

NBC Bay Area<\/a> reported that warning signs now greet hikers at the trailheads of Sierra Vista Open Space Preserve after a lion was reported along the Calaveras Fault Trail. The postings follow an incident late last week in which a man hiking the preserve\u2019s Boccardo Loop Trail called 911 to say a mountain lion was following him. With spotty cell service, he stayed put two miles from the trailhead until a Santa Clara County Sheriff\u2019s helicopter found him, landed and flew him out unhurt.<\/p>\n

Whether he was ever in danger is a separate question. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, which manages the 1,611-acre preserve, said the animal showed none of the behaviors that signal a hunt, no crouching, no sustained trailing. It sounded like a lion being a lion. <\/p>\n

The rescue capped a strange week for the species. Days later a mountain lion spent a Saturday night in a tree near the Golden Gate Park Panhandle, a rare confirmed sighting inside San Francisco. Biologists think that cat came up from the South Bay through fragmented habitat.<\/p>\n

With 4,000 to 6,000 lions statewide and more people on more trails, encounters are up. State records list fewer than 50 verified attacks on humans since 1890.<\/p>\n

The advice never changes. Do not run. Look big, make noise, back away slowly and give the cat an exit. It wants one more than you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somewhere in the foothills east of San Jose, a mountain lion has no idea it triggered a helicopter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[184,100,1727,88,90,89,7662],"class_list":["post-460633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-bay-area","tag-news","tag-outdoors","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}