Miami has alligators. Anchorage has bears. Oakland has mountain lions.

But unlike the predators of those other cities, mountain lions are rarely seen. The big cats don’t turn up lounging on the diving boards of backyard pools, or sauntering down Broadway. Even Dee Rosario, a ranger at Redwood Regional Park, has never seen a mountain lion after 30 years in the park. But he knows the lions are there. “None of the Rangers have seen them because we are always working or making noise,” says Mr. Rosario.

While rangers don’t see the mountain lions in Redwood, others do. In 2009, there were more than half a dozen sightings. This year, said Rosario, there have been zero. Counting the cats is not an exact science. After someone reports that they have seen a mountain lion, a biologist from the East Bay Regional Park District contacts the person, and tries to make sure they didn’t really see a deer, a dog, or some other kind of cat.

Mr. Rosario says that despite the lack of hard evidence, by piecing together information gathered from hikers’ accounts, he thinks the Redwood population is “doing well.”  In the past two years, there have been a few sightings of one or two cubs, meaning that the population has all the factors needed to support a growing population.

At first glance, a place like Redwood Park may seem not seem the best place for a mountain lion to be in. After all, a mature male mountain lion may have a home range of 100 miles, and is able to cover 25 miles in just one night of hunting. While Redwood Park offers miles of trails for a quick outdoor fix, it is hardly a desolate, uninterrupted wilderness. However, the presence of mountain lions in a near-urban setting makes sense when you consider the predator-prey relationship.

The favorite food of a mountain lion is deer. And in the hills of Oakland, there are plenty of deer. The lions of Redwood have also been known on occasion to eat a feral pig that has wandered over from the East Bay Municipal Utility District land that borders the park to the east. Since an adult cat can eat a deer a week, and since there is a lack of predatory competition -- besides cars -- it is possible that the 1839 acres of Redwood Park may provide plenty of habitat for mountain lions. Add to that the corridor effect of the arrangement of other East Bay Regional Parks, and there is plenty of reason to believe that there are a number of healthy lions roaming the hills.

The only way to know the exact population of mountain lions in Oakland or the East Bay would be by conducting a study that would involve radio collaring and tracking their behavior and ranges for several years. All East Bay Regional Park people contacted while trying to track down some mountain lion information were in favor of a study, and thought that participating in one would be interesting. However, both the funds and the initiative are missing.

Despite being extremely reclusive, mountain lions receive an enormous amount of bad press. So, one can’t blame people for conjuring up images of stealthy predators stalking hikers at dusk. While there have certainly been some dangerous interactions between mountain lions and people in California, there is a greater probability of being killed by a neighborhood dog.  Mountain lions, rather than being a grave threat to hikers, are valuable to the local ecosystem both physically and intrinsically.

A little preparation can easily turn a tense encounter with a mountain lion into an opportunity to witness rare wildlife. In case of a run-in with a lion, the East Bay Regional Park Service suggests: do not run away, look big, and make some noise.