Mountain Lion Questions - Page 4

snipecatcher · May 18, 2011, 12:52 PM

I went to our ranch this past weekend and found two more goat carcasses. One was 4-5 days old, the other was 1-2 weeks old. We may just have to give up on goats and keep cattle out there. Then the lion will either move on, or stick around and eat all of our deer I suppose. The next time I go out there, I'm taking bait and possibly a varmint call.
-Dan

Art Eatman · May 18, 2011, 11:06 PM

Was going through My Pictures and found this photo, taken not far from my house on his way to my garbage/burn pit just past the garage. Just one of a commonplace event.

The tire track is about six inches wide.

chewie146 · May 20, 2011, 01:10 PM

The mountain lion population around here is booming. More deer=lower cougar infant mortality. I have kids, so I know how you feel about the lion and getting rid of it. The ones seen around my house are with cubs, so there won't be any hunting of them legally. There are 2 females around town right now that are drinking from people's back porches, etc. Look up Los Alamos Mountain Lion on YouTube for some annoying music and a video of one of the locals.

TXGunNut · May 21, 2011, 11:56 PM

I'm glad to see mountain lions making a comeback in TX but I can verify that deer get scarce when the big cats come around. The new behavior bothers me, though.

Geezerbiker · May 22, 2011, 02:53 AM

My father saw a cougar in town in McMinnville, OR about a half mile from Linfiield University... I left him a .22 and told him to gut shoot it if he saw it again. He never saw it again but that would have been the smart thing to do. I know I would have.

Tony

HiBC · May 22, 2011, 04:35 AM

from Ft Collins Coloradoan Newspaper May 13

Students and staff at two Fort Collins elementary schools were required to stay indoors for a few hours Thursday morning after a mountain lion was reported roaming in the city.

Putnam and Irish elementary schools were put on lockout about 8:25 a.m. as Fort Collins police and Division of Wildlife officers searched near Putnam, 1400 Maple St., after police received a single 911 call saying a mountain lion was seen near the school.

Do a search on Ft Collins school lockdown mountain lion.There is video.This lion returned to the school area a couple days after the first siting.
A few years ago a child was taken and killed in the Poudre River Canyon near here .It was a lion.A rancher I know lost a whole lot of fence to a lion running his cattle at night.That lion made some horse kills and was stalking a human that made it to his truck.A dog hunter was contracted by the state.It was over 200 lbs.
A different rancher allowed me permission on a prime private mountain he owns.Great elk country.We saw nothing.He explained a couple lions were on the mountain.
I saw one on a local hiking trail.He was not afraid of me.I pack my .44 spl snubby on that trail now.
I have also seen a deer spine/ribs/carcass about 12 ft up in a tree draped over a limb on the North Fork of the Poudre River.
A friend who had a home with an auto business within a half mile of a major shopping center told me his kids came in once and said "Mommy,there is a big cat outside on the fence"She went to see a lion in the yard where her kids were playing.
Foxes are supposed to be so wary,my neighborhood is crawling with them.I see them within 20 feet almost daily.They are not afraid,they ignore people.
I know,some say"Oh,how cute" I don't think so.
Oh,I have eaten lion,and it is excellent.
I do not care to shoot one as a trophy,but things are getting out of balance when mountain lion sightings are common,or in town.

Art Eatman · May 22, 2011, 06:21 AM

TXGunNut, the lions started recovering in numbers after the drouth of the 1950s. A lot of ranchers had gone broke, so there was less predator control.

The breakup of many large ranches into "ranchettes" has also contributed. Less hunting in the chopped-up lands so fewer deer kills, more deer, more lion food.

The range and numbers has been steadily increasing, pretty much, for the last fifty years.

TXGunNut · May 22, 2011, 09:12 AM

I've only been aware of it over the past 10-20 yrs around here but we're quite aways apart, Art. In terms of area most ranches here on the fringes of D/FW wouldn't make a decent pasture in your part of the state. They're still pretty scarce around here but the reports from other areas about their growing boldness is what concerns me. I hope they don't become urbanized like the coyotes. With their stealth they could be a real problem.
I'm sure you're doing your part in feline population control, Art.

eyeball2 · May 22, 2011, 07:25 PM

art and snipe, i'm a dr here in west tex. and have hunted all my life. i've killed a lot of bear, deer , elk, turkey with bow, rifle and muzzleloader. i would like to try calling in and getting a lion. i take a lot of coyotes and bobcat. i used to hunt archery in the sacramento mts of n.m. 30 years ago and see 25-50 deer a day until furs went down and folks quit trapping. also restrictions on cougar has ruined the deer hunting in s.east new mexico mountains. biologists have been unable to bring them back due to the predators. there are deer in small towns but very few in the back country,due to the protection from predators in town. i have seen coyotes running down grown doe many times and did as a kid in south texas. there aren't many deer in big bend national park or the wildlife areas since predator control is not allowed. surrounding ranches must have aggresive lion control or they have no deer. thanks, rc

eyeball2 · May 22, 2011, 07:55 PM

mother nature doesnt really have a balance. that is a fallicy spread by preservationists and liberal nuts. studies in ak indicate wolves get like 75% of caribou and hunters about 10% if i remember correctly. mother nature in some areas has essentially all game killed before predator populations implode. only then can game come back. in areas near the rio grande there is a constant supply of cougar from mexico. i remember, as a child living on a ranch in s.west texas and there was a child killed and taken from an enclosed ranch yard. lots of that happened years ago and never made it into modern wildlife statistics.

Art Eatman · May 22, 2011, 10:09 PM

Back in the 1990s I leased a small state tract not far north of the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis. Not many deer there to begin with, and then one year I came across more lion tracks than deer tracks.

HiBC · May 23, 2011, 01:56 AM

Terlingua? Got chili?

A_Gamehog · June 5, 2011, 10:51 PM

AZ Mt. Lion near Roosevelt Lake

Art Eatman · June 6, 2011, 07:36 AM

ROFL! That give a whole new meaning to "ludicrous"!

doofus47 · June 6, 2011, 11:30 AM

that's one big kitty scratching post!

A_Gamehog · June 6, 2011, 11:36 AM

Of course it's a "Female" as she's lost and looking for directions?

WildBill45 · June 8, 2011, 02:28 AM

Quote:

There's no reason to shoot a mountain lion.

I beg to differ on that!

I had to sort out one in Colorado, before I am became the sortee! Most of the time they avoid humans and no one knows they were around, but, and there always is a but in life, animals like people, do have problem members of the species that didn't get the memo! TRUST ME!

Art Eatman · June 8, 2011, 09:04 AM

"There's no reason to shoot a mountain lion."

That's too all-inclusive a statement. I know of three reported attacks in Big Bend National Park. While one of them is rather "iffy", two were for real. The minor event resulted in a woman's hand scratched rather severely, as she was interposing herself between the cougar and her two children.

The other attack necessitated an airlift to a plastic surgeon in Midland, with a six-year-old having severe head injuries and his 10-year-old brother being clawed.

I'm not ranching, so major predators are no threat to me. Were I in the sheep and goat business, I'd have a different attitude. A neighbor once lost 13 goats to a lion attack. A rancher up by Marathon suffered a like depredation on penned sheep, from a radio-collared lion which had been released two days previously and some sixty miles to the south in the 125,000-acre Black Gap Wildlife Refuge.

Jack O'Conner · June 9, 2011, 05:39 PM

You need the right dog(s). A guy I know in Wyoming has a pack of hounds and one Airedale. The Airedale has the courage and stamina to fight when the hounds are getting whipped or tired out.

Any good gun will topple a lion out of a tree. 22's have been used with success but my acquaintance carries a 30-30.

Jack

Geezerbiker · June 9, 2011, 09:39 PM

We can use dogs to hunt cats in liberal Oregon and now we have lots of them and it's still hard as hell to get one.

When I was a kid one of our neighbors was a retired gunsmith turned rancher. I recall him saying that he hunted cougar with a .22 LR. His reasoning was if you hit one with a high powered round, the cat would often run off and die but with a .22 LR, the cat would stay up the tree until it bled out.

I don't know if this is good info but it's what I remember from one old timer that sure seemed to be a good hunter...

Tony

Outlaw81 · June 11, 2011, 11:28 AM

I'm just gonna drop my 2 cents and say: Leave that poor kitty alone! Seriously. Those are one of the prettiest animals I've had the pleasure of viewing in the wild. I use to have one that followed me within 200 yds back to my truck at night. At first I was freaked out a little, but one night I stopped and threw the lights on her. She was sniffing where I would drop my jerky bags every evening cleaning out my fanny pack. The reason I know it was a she, is the next season, I saw her around the creek bottom with her kitten. The only people that mt lions attack apparently are <...> joggers and their kids in CA. I've never in all my years hunting had any animal pull the aggressive on me.

Geezerbiker · June 11, 2011, 01:21 PM

I typoed, in Oregon we cannot hunt big cats with dogs. Since then the cougar numbers have grown like wildfire and it's to the point where the state has to hire professional hunters so they can get them out of urban areas.

Screw that beautiful animal crap, they're a varmint in many areas.

Tony

A_Gamehog · June 11, 2011, 08:29 PM

They have had Mt. Lion sightings and encounters for the past 3-4 months in Bend, Oregon. In all instances the deer were in town near homes feeding for protection and lions followed and killed then ate in town. Another article was in the paper yesterday with another deer killed and eaten in town.

Art Eatman · June 11, 2011, 08:53 PM

"The only people that mt lions attack apparently are <...> joggers and their kids in CA."

Outlaw 81, you obviouslly did not read Post #93.

Question: Why the snark against joggers and their kids? Sneering attitudes against "just folks" and particularly against children are not welcome here.

Hunter Customs · June 13, 2011, 08:00 AM

It seems a mountain lion was hit by a SUV in Milord Conn., 70 miles from New York City.

The story reads that this may be an escaped pet or one released because the Eastern mountain lion was claimed to be extinct this year.
This is the same story used in Missouri for years when the MDC did not want to acknowledge that we had mountain lions in the state.

What I find amusing in the story is the writer claims the closest known population of mountain lions is in the state of Missouri.
I wonder where that information came from, as the MDC still claims we do not have a mountain lion population in Missouri.

We have had two shot and killed this year in Missouri, several found dead along the highways in the past, and numerous sightings and pictures of the big cats.
But still no population of the big cats in this state, where's that bridge they want me to buy?

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
www.huntercustoms.com

May 21, 2011, 11:56 PM	#79
TXGunNut Senior Member Join Date: January 16, 2010 Location: If you have to ask... Posts: 2,860	I'm glad to see mountain lions making a comeback in TX but I can verify that deer get scarce when the big cats come around. The new behavior bothers me, though. __________________ Life Member NRA, TSRA Smokeless powder is a passing fad! -Steve Garbe I hate rude behavior in a man. I won't tolerate it. -Woodrow F. Call Lonesome Dove My favorite recipes start out with a handful of used wheelweights.

May 22, 2011, 09:12 AM	#83
TXGunNut Senior Member Join Date: January 16, 2010 Location: If you have to ask... Posts: 2,860	I've only been aware of it over the past 10-20 yrs around here but we're quite aways apart, Art. In terms of area most ranches here on the fringes of D/FW wouldn't make a decent pasture in your part of the state. They're still pretty scarce around here but the reports from other areas about their growing boldness is what concerns me. I hope they don't become urbanized like the coyotes. With their stealth they could be a real problem. I'm sure you're doing your part in feline population control, Art. __________________ Life Member NRA, TSRA Smokeless powder is a passing fad! -Steve Garbe I hate rude behavior in a man. I won't tolerate it. -Woodrow F. Call Lonesome Dove My favorite recipes start out with a handful of used wheelweights.

May 22, 2011, 07:55 PM	#85
eyeball2 Junior Member Join Date: March 20, 2011 Posts: 10	mt lion mother nature doesnt really have a balance. that is a fallicy spread by preservationists and liberal nuts. studies in ak indicate wolves get like 75% of caribou and hunters about 10% if i remember correctly. mother nature in some areas has essentially all game killed before predator populations implode. only then can game come back. in areas near the rio grande there is a constant supply of cougar from mexico. i remember, as a child living on a ranch in s.west texas and there was a child killed and taken from an enclosed ranch yard. lots of that happened years ago and never made it into modern wildlife statistics.

June 5, 2011, 10:51 PM	#88
A_Gamehog Senior Member Join Date: February 9, 2009 Location: Central Oregun Posts: 563	AZ Mt. Lion near Roosevelt Lake __________________ "Happiness is knowing the Barred Owl is Eating the Spotted Owl and environmentalists are watching Nature take it's course"

June 6, 2011, 11:36 AM	#91
A_Gamehog Senior Member Join Date: February 9, 2009 Location: Central Oregun Posts: 563	Of course it's a "Female" as she's lost and looking for directions? __________________ "Happiness is knowing the Barred Owl is Eating the Spotted Owl and environmentalists are watching Nature take it's course"

May 18, 2011, 12:52 PM	#76
snipecatcher Senior Member Join Date: February 1, 2009 Location: Texas Posts: 314	I went to our ranch this past weekend and found two more goat carcasses. One was 4-5 days old, the other was 1-2 weeks old. We may just have to give up on goats and keep cattle out there. Then the lion will either move on, or stick around and eat all of our deer I suppose. The next time I go out there, I'm taking bait and possibly a varmint call. -Dan

May 20, 2011, 01:10 PM	#78
chewie146 Senior Member Join Date: October 25, 2010 Location: New Mexico Posts: 853	The mountain lion population around here is booming. More deer=lower cougar infant mortality. I have kids, so I know how you feel about the lion and getting rid of it. The ones seen around my house are with cubs, so there won't be any hunting of them legally. There are 2 females around town right now that are drinking from people's back porches, etc. Look up Los Alamos Mountain Lion on YouTube for some annoying music and a video of one of the locals.

May 22, 2011, 02:53 AM	#80
Geezerbiker Senior Member Join Date: March 20, 2011 Location: Willamina, OR Posts: 1,908	My father saw a cougar in town in McMinnville, OR about a half mile from Linfiield University... I left him a .22 and told him to gut shoot it if he saw it again. He never saw it again but that would have been the smart thing to do. I know I would have. Tony

May 22, 2011, 04:35 AM	#81
HiBC Senior Member Join Date: November 13, 2006 Posts: 8,288	from Ft Collins Coloradoan Newspaper May 13 Students and staff at two Fort Collins elementary schools were required to stay indoors for a few hours Thursday morning after a mountain lion was reported roaming in the city. Putnam and Irish elementary schools were put on lockout about 8:25 a.m. as Fort Collins police and Division of Wildlife officers searched near Putnam, 1400 Maple St., after police received a single 911 call saying a mountain lion was seen near the school. Do a search on Ft Collins school lockdown mountain lion.There is video.This lion returned to the school area a couple days after the first siting. A few years ago a child was taken and killed in the Poudre River Canyon near here .It was a lion.A rancher I know lost a whole lot of fence to a lion running his cattle at night.That lion made some horse kills and was stalking a human that made it to his truck.A dog hunter was contracted by the state.It was over 200 lbs. A different rancher allowed me permission on a prime private mountain he owns.Great elk country.We saw nothing.He explained a couple lions were on the mountain. I saw one on a local hiking trail.He was not afraid of me.I pack my .44 spl snubby on that trail now. I have also seen a deer spine/ribs/carcass about 12 ft up in a tree draped over a limb on the North Fork of the Poudre River. A friend who had a home with an auto business within a half mile of a major shopping center told me his kids came in once and said "Mommy,there is a big cat outside on the fence"She went to see a lion in the yard where her kids were playing. Foxes are supposed to be so wary,my neighborhood is crawling with them.I see them within 20 feet almost daily.They are not afraid,they ignore people. I know,some say"Oh,how cute" I don't think so. Oh,I have eaten lion,and it is excellent. I do not care to shoot one as a trophy,but things are getting out of balance when mountain lion sightings are common,or in town.

May 22, 2011, 06:21 AM	#82
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	TXGunNut, the lions started recovering in numbers after the drouth of the 1950s. A lot of ranchers had gone broke, so there was less predator control. The breakup of many large ranches into "ranchettes" has also contributed. Less hunting in the chopped-up lands so fewer deer kills, more deer, more lion food. The range and numbers has been steadily increasing, pretty much, for the last fifty years.

May 22, 2011, 07:25 PM	#84
eyeball2 Junior Member Join Date: March 20, 2011 Posts: 10	art and snipe, i'm a dr here in west tex. and have hunted all my life. i've killed a lot of bear, deer , elk, turkey with bow, rifle and muzzleloader. i would like to try calling in and getting a lion. i take a lot of coyotes and bobcat. i used to hunt archery in the sacramento mts of n.m. 30 years ago and see 25-50 deer a day until furs went down and folks quit trapping. also restrictions on cougar has ruined the deer hunting in s.east new mexico mountains. biologists have been unable to bring them back due to the predators. there are deer in small towns but very few in the back country,due to the protection from predators in town. i have seen coyotes running down grown doe many times and did as a kid in south texas. there aren't many deer in big bend national park or the wildlife areas since predator control is not allowed. surrounding ranches must have aggresive lion control or they have no deer. thanks, rc

May 22, 2011, 10:09 PM	#86
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	Back in the 1990s I leased a small state tract not far north of the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis. Not many deer there to begin with, and then one year I came across more lion tracks than deer tracks.

May 23, 2011, 01:56 AM	#87
HiBC Senior Member Join Date: November 13, 2006 Posts: 8,288	Terlingua? Got chili?

June 6, 2011, 07:36 AM	#89
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	ROFL! That give a whole new meaning to "ludicrous"!

June 6, 2011, 11:30 AM	#90
doofus47 Senior Member Join Date: June 9, 2010 Location: live in a in a house when i'm not in a tent Posts: 2,483	that's one big kitty scratching post!

June 8, 2011, 09:04 AM	#93
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	"There's no reason to shoot a mountain lion." That's too all-inclusive a statement. I know of three reported attacks in Big Bend National Park. While one of them is rather "iffy", two were for real. The minor event resulted in a woman's hand scratched rather severely, as she was interposing herself between the cougar and her two children. The other attack necessitated an airlift to a plastic surgeon in Midland, with a six-year-old having severe head injuries and his 10-year-old brother being clawed. I'm not ranching, so major predators are no threat to me. Were I in the sheep and goat business, I'd have a different attitude. A neighbor once lost 13 goats to a lion attack. A rancher up by Marathon suffered a like depredation on penned sheep, from a radio-collared lion which had been released two days previously and some sixty miles to the south in the 125,000-acre Black Gap Wildlife Refuge.

June 9, 2011, 05:39 PM	#94
Jack O'Conner Senior Member Join Date: July 11, 2005 Location: Manatee County, Florida Posts: 1,976	You need the right dog(s). A guy I know in Wyoming has a pack of hounds and one Airedale. The Airedale has the courage and stamina to fight when the hounds are getting whipped or tired out. Any good gun will topple a lion out of a tree. 22's have been used with success but my acquaintance carries a 30-30. Jack __________________ Fire up the grill! Deer hunting IS NOT catch and release.

June 9, 2011, 09:39 PM	#95
Geezerbiker Senior Member Join Date: March 20, 2011 Location: Willamina, OR Posts: 1,908	We can use dogs to hunt cats in liberal Oregon and now we have lots of them and it's still hard as hell to get one. When I was a kid one of our neighbors was a retired gunsmith turned rancher. I recall him saying that he hunted cougar with a .22 LR. His reasoning was if you hit one with a high powered round, the cat would often run off and die but with a .22 LR, the cat would stay up the tree until it bled out. I don't know if this is good info but it's what I remember from one old timer that sure seemed to be a good hunter... Tony

June 11, 2011, 11:28 AM	#96
Outlaw81 Senior Member Join Date: April 9, 2011 Location: Southeast OK Posts: 114	I'm just gonna drop my 2 cents and say: Leave that poor kitty alone! Seriously. Those are one of the prettiest animals I've had the pleasure of viewing in the wild. I use to have one that followed me within 200 yds back to my truck at night. At first I was freaked out a little, but one night I stopped and threw the lights on her. She was sniffing where I would drop my jerky bags every evening cleaning out my fanny pack. The reason I know it was a she, is the next season, I saw her around the creek bottom with her kitten. The only people that mt lions attack apparently are <...> joggers and their kids in CA. I've never in all my years hunting had any animal pull the aggressive on me. __________________ Don't Run...You'll only die tired. “It was the ultimate hunting trip: a man hunting another man who was hunting me. Don’t talk to me about hunting lions or elephants; they don’t fight back with rifles and scopes!"--Chuck Mawhinney Marines never die...We just go to hell and regroup!! Last edited by Art Eatman; June 11, 2011 at 08:49 PM. Reason: Unacceptable language

June 11, 2011, 01:21 PM	#97
Geezerbiker Senior Member Join Date: March 20, 2011 Location: Willamina, OR Posts: 1,908	I typoed, in Oregon we cannot hunt big cats with dogs. Since then the cougar numbers have grown like wildfire and it's to the point where the state has to hire professional hunters so they can get them out of urban areas. Screw that beautiful animal crap, they're a varmint in many areas. Tony

June 11, 2011, 08:29 PM	#98
A_Gamehog Senior Member Join Date: February 9, 2009 Location: Central Oregun Posts: 563	They have had Mt. Lion sightings and encounters for the past 3-4 months in Bend, Oregon. In all instances the deer were in town near homes feeding for protection and lions followed and killed then ate in town. Another article was in the paper yesterday with another deer killed and eaten in town. __________________ "Happiness is knowing the Barred Owl is Eating the Spotted Owl and environmentalists are watching Nature take it's course"

June 11, 2011, 08:53 PM	#99
Art Eatman Staff in Memoriam Join Date: November 13, 1998 Location: Terlingua, TX; Thomasville, GA Posts: 24,798	"The only people that mt lions attack apparently are <...> joggers and their kids in CA." Outlaw 81, you obviouslly did not read Post #93. Question: Why the snark against joggers and their kids? Sneering attitudes against "just folks" and particularly against children are not welcome here.

June 13, 2011, 08:00 AM	#100
Hunter Customs Senior Member Join Date: March 26, 2005 Location: Osborn, Missouri Posts: 2,697	It seems a mountain lion was hit by a SUV in Milord Conn., 70 miles from New York City. The story reads that this may be an escaped pet or one released because the Eastern mountain lion was claimed to be extinct this year. This is the same story used in Missouri for years when the MDC did not want to acknowledge that we had mountain lions in the state. What I find amusing in the story is the writer claims the closest known population of mountain lions is in the state of Missouri. I wonder where that information came from, as the MDC still claims we do not have a mountain lion population in Missouri. We have had two shot and killed this year in Missouri, several found dead along the highways in the past, and numerous sightings and pictures of the big cats. But still no population of the big cats in this state, where's that bridge they want me to buy? Best Regards Bob Hunter www.huntercustoms.com