Jogger's death starts puma panic COOL, California--Trail runner Barbara Schoener, 40, a Placerville mother of two, on April 23 became the first human to be killed by a puma in California since 1909, when Morgan Hill school teacher Isola Kennedy, 38, and pupil Earl Wilson, 8, were mauled by a rabid mountain lion. They survived their wounds, but died of the rabies some weeks later.

Schoener, running alone in the Auburn State Recreation Area, apparently unwittingly approached the puma's den. Wildlife officials killed the puma on May 1, after several days of tracking, discovered she was a lactating female, and rescued a male cub on May 4, who will be donated to a zoo or wildlife park.

Puma panic grew on May 9, when state Department of Fish and Game warden Lt. Robert Turner killed another female puma, who reportedly rushed to within five feet of a three-year-old boy at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park before the boy's father rousted her with a stick.

The attacks gave weight to governor Pete Wilson's drive to repeal Proposition 117, the 1990 voter-approved initiative that made permanent a 1972 ban on recreational puma hunting. Hunters argue that because of the hunting ban, pumas have lost their fear of people. The real issue may be that California pumas purportedly kill about 250,000 deer annually. In fact, more pumas are shot now than ever before. Only five permits to kill "nuisance" pumas were issued in 1971, but 778 have been issued since 1990, resulting in 296 dead pumas.

Only 11 people have been killed by pumas in the whole U.S. during this century.