YIKES......TOO!

[scrubcedar]

Just a PostScript to the above. Talked to a certain finance manager in one of the dealerships I visit, she's about 5'2" , lean and tough as rusty old nails. I've watched her reduce hulking, swaggering, salesmen into cringing little boys She was raised on a ranch in Idaho and had exactly the same beliefs about cougars. I quite frankly could see this woman,all 98lbs of her wrestling grizzlies and them somehow finding a way to scream uncle! If she gets a serious look on her face and talks about them being dangerous it's probably time to listen.

[Art Eatman]

Here's a kitty:


http://www.bigbendchat.com/portal/fo...75db6d84c2e3d0

[scrubcedar]

Looks a little skinny. Maybe it needs to migrate to colorado so it can eat a little better. There were these neighbors I used to have..........

[buck460XVR]

I quite frankly could see this woman,all 98lbs of her wrestling grizzlies and them somehow finding a way to scream uncle!

I'm thinkin' in that fantasy, the Grizzly looks a lot like you........

Ask yourself a few questions and feel free to do research on them.

I did and here are the objective answers I found to them.....some are direct quotes, some are summations of what I read on different sites/locations.

1. How many predators in the lower 48 have been documented repeatedly stalking humans as prey?

Due to the expanding human population, cougar ranges increasingly overlap with areas inhabited by humans. Attacks on humans are rare, as cougar prey recognition is a learned behavior and they do not generally recognize humans as prey.

2. How many predators in the lower 48 have been documented to deliberately stalk, drag off, and attempt to eat children in particular?

Number one predator to do this....humans. No others were shown to "deliberately" stalk children.

3. How many people who have no political agenda, are not involved in tourism, and have extensive experience with cougars feel like they are no big deal?

The majority of folks. Facts are, those that most strongly oppose cougars are those that are either ill-informed or have an agenda themselves against cougars. This agenda generally is because of the competition for game animals. The cougar hunts them to live, the human counterpart, for the most part does it for sport. Many times when the human is unsuccessful, he feels the need to blame something other than his own ineptness.

I also cannot for the life of me, believe, that State officials, the DOW, the Division of Tourism and highly regarded newspapers in Colorado would lie to the public and put hundreds of thousands of innocent woman and children at risk of death or injury in return for a few more tourism dollars. This kind of expansive conspiracy ain't gonna happen, regardless of what kind of tin-foil you use for a hat.



FrankenMauser said it well......

The Big Kitties here are nowhere near as vicious as you want everyone to believe.

Nor are you doing the great public service you claim you are in the colorful justification for poaching.

One more thing, when a cougar tracks were routinely spotted near a ranchers house ,or one was seen repeatedly enough to worry the neighbors,"coyote" hunts including tracking dogs tended to happen, sometimes with the men of two or three households. Not too long afterwards someone would buy a cougar skin rug to celebrate the hunt. Take those things out of the picture and I can assure you the numbers you dealt with would have changed.

Instead, by your own words, you are adding to the problem by not reporting encounters with nuisance animals. Must be it's more fun to go out with the boys and run a random cat up a tree with the hounds and then have a celebration, than it is to report to the DOW about a nuisance cat and have them take care of it. Even better they not know there are any cats around....that way they won't think anyone is out poaching them. Local warden told me that they don't automatically confirm cougar sightings because many folks make them up or are mistaken. They see a flash of tan in the brush and assume it's a cougar. They see random tracks in the sand and assume they are being stalked. These same folks claim to be more knowledgeable about cougars and other wildlife than trained biologists and the wardens themselves. One reason they try to justify taking the law into their own hands. Truth is, it's still poaching/violating. Truth is that most violators do not only violate once or only do the same violation. They tend to violate multiple times doing multiple types of violations....and yes, they generally have some kind of justification for each. At least to themselves.

[Art Eatman]

Big Bend National Park has had two cougar attacks on children and one on an adult. One scare might not actually have been an incipient attack.

A cougar killed a woman near Sacramento, a fair number of years ago, and there was another killing of a bicycle rider in (IIRC) a state park in California.

The only cougar kill of a human that I know of in Colorado was a jogger, west of Denver. It was guessed that the jogger might have been kneeling, re-tying a shoe.

[Discern]

Most people with livestock have no love for mountain lions. Especially when you see one kill one of your livestock, and the wildlife officials literally call you a liar. A mountain lion is very capable of killing an animal well over 1,000 lbs.

If one does attack you, go for their eyes. Yes, they almost always attack from behind so be watchful.

This video gives you an idea of the strength of a mountain lion. IMO, pound for pound a cat is a very strong creature - stronger than any human.

WARNING - This video is graphic with a mountain lion killing a mule deer buck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CLqJCGNCjo

[buck460XVR]

Most people with livestock have no love for mountain lions.

Most people with livestock have many threats to their livelihood. Weather, disease, genetics, market prices, just to name a few. There are many risks involved in farming/ranching. Some can be controlled, some can not. Predation on domestic livestock/pets by cougars, wolves, coyotes, foxes and feral dogs is not new. It has been going on for thousands of years. Pasture cattle/horses/sheep in lion/wolf country and odds are sooner or later there will be an attack on one of these animals. Not accepting that is foolish and a sign of not knowing your business. Funny, as much technology as we have here in the United States, we still have not figured out how to deal with it other than to wipe out a whole species or population because of the actions of a few individuals. Go to any other country in the world, including the poor undeveloped third world, and those folks have found alternative ways to deal with predators that work better. Guard dogs or other protective type animals, diversity of animals within the same pasture, knowledge and traits of local predators and frightening devices. Here in the U.S., we put out animals with no knowledge of how to protect themselves, with no other means of protection from predation, and when we have problems, we just want to call the local government, have them take care of the problem and pay us for our troubles.......sounds a lot like welfare, don't it? Many folks have made the comment that predators can make or break any rancher. My view is, that it may be the straw that breaks the back of a unsuccessful rancher on their way out anyway, but statistics such as this show cougars pose very little threat to ranchers and their livelihood.According to figures in Texas in 1990, 86 calves (0.0006% of a total of 13.4 million cattle & calves in Texas), 253 Mohair goats, 302 Mohair kids, 445 sheep (0.02% of a total of 2.0 million sheep & lambs in Texas) and 562 lambs (0.04% of 1.2 million lambs in Texas) were confirmed to have been killed by cougars that year While there always will be instances of nuisance animals that need to be culled(and I have no problem with that) or too many animals one one area that need to be thinned(no problem there either), the illegal shooting of any random animal just because it appears in the horizon and in the minds of some, "may" become a problem at some point in time is just the human desire to kill something for the thrill. Many times we add to the problem even more by inviting prey animals such as deer and elk, and small game close to our homes under the premise that we enjoy watching nature....i.e., food plots and feeders. All we are doing is bringing their natural enemies closer to us also. This is very obvious here in Wisconsin with deer and wolves. But then when the predators take one of our pets or the daughter's 4-H calf, , it's their fault. The reason the feds reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone was because the the neighboring ranchers whinin' about the damage to crops from too many elk. They didn't really want natural predators, they wanted to be payed for crops THEY said were damaged, and they wanted to have the opportunity to shoot or have lease patrons pay for the opportunity to shoot more elk. Now they whine cause there are no elk left. Such is human nature.

This video gives you an idea of the strength of a mountain lion. IMO, pound for pound a cat is a very strong creature - stronger than any human.

WARNING - This video is graphic with a mountain lion killing a mule deer buck.

Wild cats(doesn't matter what breed or size) all kill prey animals to survive. That's what they do and they are good at it. This video is no more graphic than what we can see on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel. The circle of life is not always pretty. Neither is watching a deer die from a poorly or well placed bullet. Remember, we are predators also.

Cougars at one time were eradicated from Wisconsin because of human ignorance and human greed. Their sightings here are still very rare. They had been an important part of the local ecology for hundreds of thousands of years and had a special place in the culture of the local Native Americans. They are a beautiful and interesting creature and pose very little threat to humans, here in Wisconsin and elsewhere. This is not internet myth or opinion, but fact.

[Discern]

buck460XVR

People in poor, undeveloped, third world countries will track down problem wild animals and take care of them. Do that here, and you are likely to be heavily fined and in prison. I have a novel idea, let the animal owners here have the right to track down and take care of problem wild animals like animal owners can do in other countries; and the animal owners here won't need to contact the government. That will take care of what you refer to as 'welfare'.

You mentioned Wisconsin. I suggest you travel to northern Wisconsin and ask about livestock owners who were fined or threatened with fines for shooting black bears that were chasing their livestock.

Do actual/factual research on your wolf and Yellowstone claims. Why not start by watching the Crying Wolf Movie? What crops did they raise near Yellowstone in the 80's and 90's for ranchers to file claims of crop loss? Funny, I don't see much if any farmland with corn or soybeans near Yellowstone like you will see in parts of Wisconsin. You may see more now due to the increased corn and soybean prices due to the ethanol and bio diesel demand, but when the Canadian Wolf (which was never native to America) was introduced (not reintroduced) raising corn and soybeans in that area is not likely to be worth the risk of crop loss or poor yields. The climate near Yellowstone is cooler, less humid with less rainfall and a much shorter growing season than southern Wisconsin. Elk do not prefer small grains.

Sounds like you have never earned your living on a farm nor were raised on a farm. FYI - look to see how some of the large corporate farms are recipients of grants or other government monies, and the regulations are written so the large corporate farms are the benefactors or so they at least receive a disproportionate share. IMO, politicians like to keep food prices down and funnel monies to the large corporate farms to keep them in business with the ability to expand their business a little more each year. If this country ever gets to the point where the large corporate farms own a majority of the farmland - hold on to your wallet. Sadly, we are getting there a little more each year. We currently have companies who own seed companies, huge portions of land, grain elevators, shipping ports, livestock, feed lots and meat processing plants. Wait another 20 or 30 years and see what you are paying for food. However, we won't want to hear buck460XVR complain about the cost of food.

You talk about 'confirmed' kills by mountain lions and other wild predators. If you personally see it occur but do not have actual video proof, or 100% authenticated tracks it is most likely to be an 'unconfirmed' incident. With pasture land, you are very unlikely to have any 100% authenticated tracks. IMO, the data is skewed and is therefore irrelevant and unreliable.

It is not just those animals that are killed. The weight those animals lose due to be chased and the lower weights due to stress on those animals are also major factors. You could also have livestock that lose their unborn offspring due to being chased. Then you have animals that are injured during the chase or attack and may have to be put down due to the extent of the injuries. If they are not put down, there will be weight loss and additional expenses during recovery. Then there are the legal expenses for defending your legal right to take care of a problem animal that is attacking your livestock.

I personally do not know any livestock owner who puts out a feeder for deer or other game.

Give the animal owners the right to take care of problem animals themselves without the threat of thousands of dollars of possible fines, tens of thousands in possible legal fees and the possibility of being put in prison and having a criminal record. Allow this, and the land and animal owners will not be contacting the government. With the way the regulations are currently, they are forced to go through governmental agencies.

[buck460XVR]

I've gone way off-topic on my own thread....sheesh. Sorry guys, this thread wasn't suppose to be about wolves or bears chasing livestock, or the fact I did grow up farming and milking cows for many years. It was about the fact that I think it's kinda neat that we have an occasional cougar in the state and how neat it would be to see one....in the wild.....in Wisconsin.


Discern, I know of many farmers that plant food plots for deer in my area....because they are deer hunters. If you are up on Wisconsin law you know that for deer, feeders are illegal and baiting is limited to 2 gallons in the few counties where baiting is legal. Not hardly worth the effort. In other states(Texas for example) it is well known that many ranchers and farmers put out feeders to attract game for hunters as hunting and leases are a part of their revenue. One attracts the game, one attracts the predators that feed on that game. Pretty simple. As for letting farmers shoot nuisance predators, I have no problem as long as it is the protection of an animal at risk. The going out and shooting of random predators that are protected or considered Big Game, should still be the same as for you and I. Saying that the DNR officials are intentionally manipulating figures is BS, just as saying that folks turning in claims for crop damage and depredation are always truthful and honest. Yes. I feel for the farmer that lost a calf to a wolf, and has to jump thru hoops in order to be reimbursed for it. Those folks they need to blame tho are the dishonest neighbors down the road, not the DNR.

The subject of large predators will always be an emotional and argumentative one. There will never be a perfect solution for all folks and all scenarios. Some think they all need to be shot, some think none should be. I'm in the middle and believe there is a place for them within even modern ecosystems. One must just strive to find the best balance for all, not just for a few. This includes the predators as well as the humans they must contend with.

[scrubcedar]

Sorry gang I've been busy this week, just logged in. buck460 let me kinda go through and I'll show you where we disagree and maybe where we agree.

"Attacks on humans are rare, as cougar prey recognition is a learned behavior and they do not generally recognize humans as prey." I've been stalked by them myself. I've seen the entire animal, ready to spring and attack me, they have the same basic look your housecat does when he's about to attack something, and yes, it looks different than walking or hiding. I've probably talked to more than a hundred people that have had the same experience. I'm not lying, they weren't either. You mention "random tracks". If you back track to get to the truck and suddenly there are a bunch of cougar tracks that weren't there before that always stay near yours what would you think? Keep in mind in that hundred or so people are three with degrees in biology or wildlife biology. They were told in school what you believe but changed their minds when they actually observed them in field.

My point about kids is well illustrated here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._North_America
I'm normally leery of wikipedia but I checked the references below they turned up legit.
Notice how much of this list is covered by these descriptions, child,small female, older and probably more vulnerable.
This is normal predator behaviour, they attack what they see as the most vulnerable member of the herd it has nothing to do with good or evil.
This attack is a perfect example.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3716178
The child was deliberately targeted when there were multiple targets available.
As for the political aspect, no tinfoil hats needed. Some government appointee official in charge of DOW for the west deliberately sets the bar high
to support his own political views and enforces it. No conspiracy needed.

Discern has already touched on my last point. People who tend to become wlidlife biologists tend to be a of a certain political persuasion and are not at all sympathetic to the ranchers point of view. They blow off ranchers as uneducated hicks.
I'll try and compress this story. It happened to a relative.
Barn cats started disappearing regularly. The last few shreds of one were discovered by their young daughter. Dad looks at the remains and see's that they are torn up differently than a fox or owl would've done, and bears just don't tend to come into this area.
DOW is called, rancher is treated with scorn by official on the phone and told that cougars don't do these sorts things.
Next day a clear cougar track is found, DOW is called again, they somehow never find the time to come out and see.
Claw marks start to appear on the chicken coop, two more cats disappear, the animals around the house are all clearly terrified.
DOW still won't do anything.
Enough, the animal is tracked and found but NOT killed. Guns are fired near it (none of them aimed in it's direction) they dogs bark and growl, the humans yell. Problem solved, animal scared off, right?
DOW called again, ranchers told they were mistaken that it couldn't be a cougar, basically told they are liars or idiots, but they would be in trouble if they had harassed the wildlife.
Problem not solved, two days he's back this time the tracks lead onto the porch.
"Coyote hunt" called, animal tracked, problem solved.
No "random" animals involved, tracking dogs used to make sure of this.
This is representative of the ranchers patience, they tried everything else first and only when humans were in danger reacted.
Can you understand how someone who had seen this behaviour from DOW would have doubts about "confirmed" numbers being actual numbers?
Bottom line is this, tourists and mountain home owners in new suburbs seem to be who we see in the 'documented' attacks. My personal theory is this, people who know to be worried about them, watch for them and scare the average cougar away. Problem animals are the ones who don't scare. Admire them all you want, just be careful of them. I certainly didn't shoot the couple who were about to attack me, I scared them off instead.

[Art Eatman]

The majority of cougars in Texas ranges generally south of I-10 and west of I-37. We have quite a few in Brewster County. I can tell you first hand that they can even be colored in somewhat Sealpoint Siamese fashion.

My next door neighbor lost 13 goats to a cougar, one night. Parks & Wildlife put a radio collar on a young male cougar, trapped over in Black Gap WMA. Two nights later, a rancher shot it in his sheep pen as it was killing sheep: Seventy miles north, up in the Glass Mountains near Marathon.

[buck460XVR]

Sorry gang I've been busy this week, just logged in. buck460 let me kinda go through and I'll show you where we disagree and maybe where we agree.

I've been busy myself lately, but agree.......we disagree on some things while agreeing on others.

I agree that cougars are large predators very capable of taking down a human if and when it ever wanted. What we disagree on is that while you argue that cougars regularly target humans as food and cougar attacks are thus a common occurrence, I state that cougars do not consider humans as a plausible food source, and REAL, not imagined attacks on humans are extremely rare.

Lets take the link you posted as evidence that attacks on children are a common occurrence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._North_America

The site gives evidence that in the last 123 years there have been 20 deaths in North America(The U.S. and Canada) caused by cougar attacks. This means that an average of 1 person every six + years is killed by a cougar. Maybe your definition of common is different than mine. Yes, not every attack ended with a death. Facts from your links show that there were 88 confirmed attacks on humans over 114 years leading up to 2004. That figures to be an average of 1 attack every 16 months.

BTW, about your claim that cougars primarily target children, out of the 20 deaths, only ten were children, 9 were adults with one age unknown. Seems to me there is no preference. I assume one reason children may be just as venerable as adults is that they too do not always pay attention to their surroundings when in areas cougars inhabit.

This is normal predator behaviour, they attack what they see as the most vulnerable member of the herd it has nothing to do with good or evil.
This attack is a perfect example.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3716178

On this we agree. Normal predator behavior as for going for the last straggler in line, generally the position of the weak. Is this attack the cougars fault or is part of the blame the parents who allowed their 7 year old to lollygag behind the rest of the group while in known cougar country? While there is always some amount of risk wherever doing any activity, one needs to not only be aware of this risk but to take reasonable precautions. This pertains to any activity, not just when hiking in known cougar habitat. This includes also allowing feral/barn cats to roam loose when in known cougar habitat. Having them disappear in such situations should not be a surprise. Allowing those same cats to feed/hang out on the front porch is just an open invitation for predators to come close. In your friends instance, since the cougar did not attack any humans and only killed the cats, it probably did your friends a favor. Barn cats carry many diseases that are transmittable to humans and are the cause of many more children being admitted to hospitals than attacks by wild animals.

Then there is this statement.

People who tend to become wlidlife biologists tend to be a of a certain political persuasion and are not at all sympathetic to the ranchers point of view. They blow off ranchers as uneducated hicks.

Are we to believe it is fine for you to stereotype and to have a predetermined mindset towards wildlife biologists while it is wrong for the biologists to do the same for ranchers? Ain't that a tad like the kettle callin' the pot black?

While I agree that in extreme scenarios, cougars can impose a great risk to humans, I disagree that they are much of a threat to humans as a whole. Even in Utah, the risk of falling down and breaking your neck while out in the woods is much greater than having your neck broke by an marauding cougar. One is just as likely to cut themselves while gutting out a deer and bleeding to death than dying from blood loss from rouge cougar attacks. While one must be alert to danger, one also must be realistic.


This has been an interesting conversation and a fine example of how two folks with similar interests can have such a difference of opinion. I respect your views as I hope you respect mine. I know you truly believe what you have said and I applaud you for keeping the conversation civil. I still think the grizzly in that wrestling fantasy is you tho........

[scrubcedar]

buck, I appreciate your civility great deal as well. I can certainly agree we see the stats differently. One confirmed, documented , attack with injuries every sixteen months, understanding the number of non-injury attacks and unreported attempts that were stopped does seem common to me. I can't think of any other wild predators in the lower 48 that could match that.
As for the wiki stats, I saw them as saying that there was only one adult male attacked and killed and he was 55 years old, arguably slower than say a 25 year old.

The most important thing you said to me however was that the child being attacked in the Denver post report was a result of a foreseeable and real danger.
This was my exact point from the beginning. I was trying to warn people of the danger involved with cougar encounters in the wild. It deeply worried me that you or someone else would go out possibly with children in tow, to see if you could see them in person, and thereby put you or them unwittingly in danger.
If you felt that way from the beginning, then maybe we ended up helping others.

[Art Eatman]

In a 30-year period, there have been only three known cougar attacks in BBNP. Two involved children.

In the first event, in the 1980s, a young male cougar attacked a boy of about six or so years of age who was in front of his brother and his parents. Severe head wounds. The brother, age 10, had lesser wounds in his attempt at rescue. The father beat the lion off the attack, with a tree branch. The event occurred near where the cougar had a deer's carcass stashed.

The next event, IIRC some eight-ish years later, had a cougar advance upon a mother and the three children who were immediately with her and who gathered behind her. She did the stand-tall thing and yelled. She received a fairly deep claw-scratch on a hand. The cougar left.

Young children are the correct size to be attractive to a cougar, particularly in park areas where they have no fear of people.

Same as most self-defense deals: "The odds are low, but the stakes are high."

FWIW about cougar strength: A buddy of mine killed an 86-pound female cougar. It had killed a 500-pound cow elk--and then dragged it 30 yards to some brush. This was on the Clinton Manges ranch near Freer.