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Old May 26, 2006, 11:31 PM   #1
taylorce1
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Mountain Lion Stalker

Just watched the Denver 10 o'clock news about a family being stalked by a mountain lion. Had to laugh and hope that I can find a clip to post. This guy is loosing feral and his house cats to a mountain lion on his property in the mountains. The guys wife says that the lion is trying to get into the house to eat their cats. Check this out the guy says he only feels safe outside their house when he is carrying of all things a pellet pistol. He said that he hopes it will sting the cat enough to keep him away for his house. I hope someone finds a news clip of this one because it is funny, CBS channel 4 aired it.
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Old May 27, 2006, 12:44 AM   #2
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similiar thing with yote in northeastern nebraska/ south eastern south dakota. Had a house with enclosed porch and my cats were out sunning them selves in the evening when a yote actually started lunging at the screen windows to get them . My wife was home alone and she grabbed my old sigle shot 10ga and killed the yote (her first time shooting a gun). She also took out the window and window sill, so we actually turned the single door and window into a sliding glass unit which we always wanted to.

If the guy is defending his house with a BB gun I am sure we will hear on the news about a man eating mountain lion eventually.
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Old May 27, 2006, 04:19 AM   #3
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It doesn't sound anything like the lion is stalking anything. It simply has a point source of food in a restricted area and is trying to take advantage of it.

Let's see, man with soft underbelly all over, not real fast on two legs and tortoise slow on all fours (compared to a mountain lion), no claws, short and blunt teeth, relative poor sense of smell, fair hearing, armed with a pellet gun versus a large predator with big teeth, big claws, very strong for size and very strong compared to most humans, covered in fur, very fast, extremely skilled, kills and eats for a living and so is highly motivated, and much better senses of smell and hearing....

My money is on the lion.
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Old May 27, 2006, 08:04 AM   #4
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So can we pre-nominate this idiot for the Darwin Award he is about to receive?

Pellet gun........mountain lion........Two words that shouldn't be uttered in the same sentence.
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Old May 27, 2006, 08:49 AM   #5
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Someone should send him a pointy stick.
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Old May 27, 2006, 10:26 AM   #6
UniversalFrost
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+1 on the pointy stick.

Also saw an article a few years ago about a hiker in Cali. being eaten by a mountain lion. She had been wearing bells (no kidding ) on her shoes to scare away the mt lions. Well the shoes with bell on them were just about all the found of her.

Personally, I think we should be supporting the lions on this topic. They are helping us get rid of the bunny hugging liberals/ morons that support them that take away our rights. We should help to increase the mt lion population in Cali, NY, NJ, (all the liberal states) and reintroduce them to D.C. area to clear up the vulchers (oops I mean elected officials that are bribed/bought)

Maybe they will think that a gun isn't such a bad idea when a mt lion is gnawing on thier leg.
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Old May 27, 2006, 11:50 AM   #7
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Frost

If you sent mountain lions to D.C area to to clear up the (vulchers) you would get charged with poisoning them. There's no way they could stomach them. But i do like the idea of the liberal/moron population control.
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Old May 28, 2006, 09:54 PM   #8
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Send 'em catnip....LOTS of catnip....

Maybe they can get it high enough to be friendly...
HA HA HA HA HA HA
It a shame people are that ignorant of animal capabilities...
Did they stop teaching that stuff since I graduated?
Oh wait, I'll bet instead of Gun Safety they teach "Animal Diversity Acceptance" <--:barf: :barf:
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Old May 29, 2006, 03:39 AM   #9
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Oh that poor mountain lion! How can that man justify using a pellet gun!? After all, the animal is just hungry and searching for food. But that man will put hard pellet in the mountain lion, it'll start to heal over, get infected and become a debilitating abcess dooming the noble mountian lion to death by starvaton. It is better than the man move his family back to the city and have his mountainside home destroyed.

Lest you think the above is entirely in jest...

In May of 2004, police in the city of Palo Alto, CA (a very upscale city and home to companies like HP, Kodak and Xerox at the northern edge of "Silicon Valley") shot and killed a mountain lion in a residential neighborhood. This occurred about 8 hours after the lion was first spotted.

Quote:
Officer Corey Preheim pulled up to a house on Walter Hays Drive, aimed her AR-15 assault rifle into a tree and fired. The lion fell about 30 feet to the ground, scrambled up and ran two lots before collapsing. Officers confirmed that it was dead.
Not only did a group of Enviro-nuts decide to hold a special "prayer & seance gathering" for the dead lion (no, I am not making this up!), but they criticized the PD for shooting the poor hapless creature. For two weeks people wrote to newspapers to show their :barf: stupidity, such as these samples;

Quote:
Why couldn't the city of Palo Alto (Page 1A, May 18) have spared the life of a non-threatening mountain lion? This animal posed no immediate danger to anyone. Clearly this animal was scared wandering into unfamiliar territory.
(No immediate danger until no one is looking, then someone's cat, dog or small child will become a litter-box deposit. How long should we wait? I wonder what the author's reaction would be if they found "Fluffy" half eaten on their doorstep?)

Quote:
I do not understand why the Palo Alto police department couldn't have tranquilized this animal and relocated it. We live in mountain lion territory, they do not live in ours. It was wrong to kill this animal.
(Let's see, Mt.Lion takes a 10 yard hit from a 5.56mm JSP, bounds up and runs two houses away. Drugs take 20 minutes to work - how many blocks could that cat run in 20 minutes? Besides, the cat was discovered by the officer looking into a tree and seeing the cat hunch down as if to jump or attack. Maybe these idiots think the cat would have heeded a warning shot?)


Quote:
Yes, to have darted the mountain lion with a tranquilizer and then released it to a sanctuary would have been sentimental -- indeed, it would have been the action of a virtuous society. Obviously we have not yet evolved to that higher ethical plane of existence. A cat treed by a dog and surrounded by at least 12 armed police officers posed no possible threat. Let us be honest about that. A god of the wild had condescended to visit us -- but we were not worthy of it.
Let's be honest about this - the author obviously has been utilizing too many recreational pharmaceuticals. Apparently citizens forget that the cat also poses a threat to the Police officers who are there doing a job that the citizens don't want to do themselves. I wonder what this half-wit would do if he found this "god of the wild" gnawing on his Schnauser?
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Old May 29, 2006, 08:59 AM   #10
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BillCA,
I'm suprised they didn't try to net it like in NYC. They need to read their Zane Grey. Real men rope cougars.
Seriously, shooting the cougar seems to be the most sensible solution out of those I've seen lately. Does it suprise you that the sensible, economical solution upsets people?
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Old June 4, 2006, 11:50 PM   #11
BillCA
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Swampdog,

Nope, it doesn't surprise me anymore. Frustrates, exasperates, infuriates, riles, annoys, and angers me, yes, but not surprise. I'm convinced that about 60% of the Californians are clueless about the reality of nature.

I live in the lower part of silicon valley. The foothills are a five-ten minute drive from home. Those living in what used to be rural areas have seen housing tracts oozing ever closer. I've motorcycled in this area quite a bit and seeing a cougar isn't unusual. In fact, one day while changing into lightweight gloves alongside the road I looked up to see Chauncy sunning himself on a rock, watching me carefully from maybe 40 feet. I made brief eye contact, spoke aloud in a calm voice and then proceeded to go about my business with occasional glances at him. We didn't bother each other and I rode off one way and he got up and disappeared into the long grass.

They are beautiful animals when they are fit and fed. Typically they are not very aggressive towards people when there is game around for them to hunt. They're almost painfully shy. But that doesn't mean I want one to hug me either. But a cougar in a residential neighborhood, miles from rural country is a danger to anyone it encounters -- and could be too easily startled into doing damage.
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Old June 5, 2006, 06:32 PM   #12
Art Eatman
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"I do not understand why the Palo Alto police department couldn't have tranquilized this animal and relocated it."

Relocate where? How far away? A friend of mine does radio-tracking from his Cessna 172. One radio-collared lion ranged from the Glass Mountains north of Marathon, Texas, south to the southern end of the Del Carmen range in Mexico. That's some 200+ miles of a wanderings path...

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Old June 5, 2006, 10:01 PM   #13
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Puma vs. Pellet pistol

Yes, yes, that is a soon-to-happen Darwin award, I'd say. Funny stuff.
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Old June 6, 2006, 12:13 AM   #14
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Double Naught Spy, well said.

what a dumbass
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Old June 6, 2006, 10:04 AM   #15
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Was not there so I will not armchair quarterback it, however containment and darting of an animal in this situation is not an unreasonable suggestion. What an agency does with it afterwards is another issue best adressed by the wildlife biologists however relocation to more remote areas again is not unreasonable if it appears that the cat just wondered in. With the right drugs and skill at darting this is not that hard and those who do it regurly are really good at it, this includes most fish and wild life agents, zoo vets, rehabers etc.

Frankly the reason why this matters is you have to ask yourself what will all the mushheads do next time there is a big cat in town? Will they ignore it? Will they try and catch it themsleves? I run into this sort of stupidity all the time with animals and public policy where people are ignorant or afriad of what will happen to the animal which offten just leads to making a bad situation worse or out of control.

BTW yotes taking domestic animals is really common here in AZ, see some small dogs that get attacked on those long retractable lead deals or in their back yards.
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Old June 18, 2006, 11:23 AM   #16
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+2 Pointy stick

I like the pointy stick idea
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Old June 18, 2006, 11:47 AM   #17
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Ha!!! That has got to be the funniest thing I've ever heard. Mountain lion defense with a pellet gun. A guy knows that there is a potentially deadly animal on his property and he chooses an air pistol for defense. I wouldn't trust an air pistol on a large bird let alone a 180lb Mountain Lion. If lived out in the woods, I would definitely have several firearms just in case there is a freak snow storm and I couldn't get supplies, it would be nice to have a firearm to bring some food to the table in an emergency. Having a mountain lion on my property would be another reason I would buy a firearm. Personally I wouldn't trust anything less than a 357Magnum pistol on a mountain lion and is generally what I bring into the woods.
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Old June 18, 2006, 03:03 PM   #18
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Easy answer.

What is needed for these situations is a specialized double rifle. Two barrels, one for a tranquilizer dart and the other for a .30 cal round. First use the tranq and then if things get out of hand use the .30.
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Old June 18, 2006, 03:08 PM   #19
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bunny huggers sure are something ain't they
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Old June 19, 2006, 03:52 PM   #20
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I'm also with Rsqvet on this one. I'm a meat eating, pest animal shooting, gun owner, but this particular animal didn't really need to be shot. I think it's standard routine to tranquilize animals in that situation. If it was prowling around rabid, looking for something to kill, it'd be a different story. But it was just hiding up a tree. Cougars aren't like african leopards, they're not very aggressive and don't pose a great danger in the couple minutes it takes for the tranquilizer to work, and if it could wander in, it could be driven out.
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Old June 20, 2006, 12:00 AM   #21
jamaica
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Pointy Stick?

The pointy stick ain't a bad idea. It would be better than a pellet gun.

Have you ever been to a circus? What did the lion tamer use? The one time I went to the circus he used a chair and a whip. A chair = 4 pointy sticks.
The Whip = Noise. The big cats don't like either. Actually no animals like whips.

In my youth I hunted lions and bob cats with hounds. The best way to kill a treed Mt Lion was to shoot it one time in the lungs with a 22LR. This caused the cat a little discomfort, but he wouldn't jump out of the tree. In a couple of minutes he would bleed out internally and fall to the ground stone dead. This was very desirable as a wounded lion on the ground put the dogs at extreme risk. Larger calibers brought the lion out of the tree, but with still life to maim a few dogs. All I used to carry hunting cats was a Ruger Single Six 22 LR. A few bob cats that decided not to tree but fight the pack, I just waded into the foray and killed the cat by hitting it over the head with my six gun. Didn't dare shoot for fear of hitting a dog. I never had a lion do that. They would tree.

Oh, another thing, if you are ever faced by a cat, make lots of noise, imitate a barking dog. A mt lion would tree with a small noisy dog, however if the dog quit baying and kept following the cat the lion would lay for it and kill it.

Personally, I am in favor of killing any cat that wanders into a subdivision.
They are there looking for prey like cats and dogs and then children. Get rid of them ASAP! A lion that has no fear of man is very dangerous.

My $.02
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Old June 20, 2006, 03:32 AM   #22
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jamaica look up 30'06 vs. pointy stick. probibly the funnest thread on here. bill wasnt there a law passed to hunt moutian lions here in california if you have a tag?
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Old June 27, 2006, 02:26 PM   #23
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If it is allowed to roam the neighborhood it will kill something or someone ,one way or another it must be dealt with asap.
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