An East County man had a very close encounter this week with a 6-foot, 100-pound mountain lion.
Buddy Wilkerson, who's lived in Jamul for the past two years, runs Wilkerson Water Wells, a water-drilling outfit that's based in Alpine but gets called out all over East County. He was driving on Japatul Road in Alpine, about 200 yards from Dehesa Road, at 11:45 a.m. on Monday when he saw a deer and mountain lion locked in a mortal struggle. It took him no time to get out his phone and shoot the cougar, which had downed the large deer and, as Wilkerson approached in his truck, tried to drag it off the road and into the woods.
Wild San Diego
Wilkerson scoffed, saying "no" when was asked whether he was frightened by the sighting.
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"Nah, I wasn't scared — I mean, I just rolled the window up; there's nothing he could have done," Wilkerson said, laughing. "He was more scared of me than I was of him."
But, you ask, did Wilkerson roll up his window? If he did, it was only halfway. Pretty sure we would have rolled ours ups ALL the way.
Still, Wilkerson admits, "My adrenaline went up a little bit when I saw the mountain lion, but he was just trying to eat and I wasn't trying to, you know, interrupt or anything. I didn't honk or rev my engine. I just wanted to see him, and as I got a little bit closer, I guess it spooked him and he tried to drag the deer off and then he let go and ran."
Wilkerson spends time outdoors — "we fish, we kind of do the desert and the river thing" — but he told NBC 7 that he'd never seen a mountain lion in the wild until Monday." That said, he has dogs, goats, chickens and ducks at his place, and ....
"We have problems with bobcats where I'm at," Wilkerson said. "I've never seen a mountain lion out here, but, I mean, we see coyotes, we see deer, wild turkey, all kinds of things on that stretch of road but I've never seen a mountain lion."
Wilkerson has customers who live close to where he spotted the big cat, so he called them up afterward to warn them there was a mountain lion on their property.
"They were happy to get the head's up," Wilkerson said.
