"Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh MY"

[rantingredneck]

File this away under "Holy Crap!"

A couple of days ago a fellow who works for me informed me that his aunt saw a lion in their hay field. Not a mountain lion, mind you (which technically we're not supposed to have here in NC anyway), but a full on female African lion. Or lioness if you prefer.

They called the county sheriff's office and a deputy came out to take a report, by which time the animal had moved along. While the deputy was taking the report, however, another call came in from a property down the road of the same thing. Now this would sound impossible were it not for the fact that there is a sanctuary for lions, tigers, and other exotic animals only a few miles from this property. Did one escape? Who knows?

This has apparently not been reported in the news as I can't find any story on it anywhere and I've searched. No further information from my friend yet on whether the animal has been seen again or whether any investigation has taken place regarding the sanctuary and taking a head count. From what I hear the sanctuary does good work, but some residents have been a little uneasy about having it in their backyard for obvious reasons.

If there is anything else reported or if anyone runs across a story of lions on the loose in Caswell Co. NC, please post a link.

The freaky thing is, I routinely hunt that property, including bowhunting. Don't think I'll be hunting there this season until firearms season comes in. Can't carry a pistol while bowhunting or muzzleloader hunting.

So, what .357 mag load for lions????

[BIGR]

Stay close to Yanceyville and maybe it won't get you.......

[tplumeri]

when are lions in season in NC?

[predator86]

i'd go hunting anyways...if it did escape then it would most likely look at you and walk away if you met up with it, it should be a little used to humans if it was raised in a sancutary....


you could always yell, "its coming right at me!!!" and then shoot it anyways

[Billy Sparks]

I think I heard a blurb on WXII here in Winston about it but that was all.

[Art Eatman]

The best hunting bullet for a .357 would be the heaviest available.

And pray to the Lord that you won't need it, because I really think it's nowhere near enough. It might work if you regularly wear lineman's climbers, though. You can get on up a pine tree and rethink your options.

[rantingredneck]

Hehe. IF I go up there at all this year (assuming it's not captured or killed before season opens), I'll have at a minimum a .30-06 or 12 ga loaded with Brenneke's. The .357 is more for a "Oops I missed get off me Kitty" last ditch proposition.

I agree, pray I don't need it .

[rantingredneck]

wow, I'm famous.........

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo...#comment-49922

[ligonierbill]

Hey, we had a lion chasing cars on State 23 in southern Ohio a couple months back. The owner coaxed it into his truck and took it home.

[rantingredneck]

http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/lio...tml#slComments

Where's the Lion?
By Roselee Papandrea / Times-News
June 13, 2009 - 6:54PM
J.B. Ross isn't an animal expert.

But the 76-year-old farmer from the Pleasant Grove area knows what he saw on the afternoon of June 4. At the time, he was raking hay at Cal Jeffries Farms on Pleasant Grove School Road when he claims he saw a female lion walking in the middle of the 175-acre farm plush with woods.

"She was walking slow in a straight line," Ross said.

When the lion got about midfield, it turned her head toward Ross.

"She didn't turn her body, just her head," he said. "I was about 200 feet from it, and I decided to take a U-turn and get in my truck."

The sight of the lion definitely scared Ross a bit, he admitted.

"But I wasn't too scared when I got that shotgun," he joked.

Within 30 minutes, Ross saw the lion another two times. At one point, it was drinking from a man-made pond. It was brown and slick with a long tail that was dragging the ground, he said.

"Poor as a snake," he said. "I could count every rib."

Shortly after the third sighting, Alamance County animal control officers were searching for the lion, too. Ross didn't call them. Another farmer, who was raking hay on nearby farm, also claimed he spotted the lion drinking from a pond.

Sgt. Kurt Lankford, the county animal officer who responded, said he received a call mid-afternoon the same day about a lion sighting on another farm on Pleasant Grove Union School Road, not too far from Pleasant Grove Elementary School.

A farmer was mowing hay when he spotted what he described as a "brown lion."

"Of course, when we got up there, there was nothing there," Lankford said. "It ran into a more heavily wooded area."

Animal control checked the area and spoke with a school resource officer from the elementary school so that area could be searched.

"We didn't find anything," Lankford said.

Lankford is careful to label the call as "an alleged lion sighting," he said.

"We have no evidence to prove where and if we do have anything," he said.

Lankford contacted Jeff Brown, an officer with the N.C. Wildlife Commission.

"Lions are just a little bit out of my day-to-day realm," Lankford said. "We can do something in an emergency instance but tracking and removal will fall to state wildlife or some zoological factions."

Lankford also contacted Conservators' Center Inc. in southern Caswell County. The non-profit center rescues wildlife in need, including lions. He said none of the wildlife that lives at the center is missing.

Cal Jeffries, who owns the farm where Ross was raking, said he thought people in the community should know that at least two people say they spotted a lion in that area.

"I think it's worth a story just so the local population can know that there was a lion up there by Pleasant Grove school," Jeffries said.

Animal control has received several calls from concerned residents who live in that area, but none of the callers actually saw a lion. He said there is some second-hand information that someone spotted unusual tracks, but there haven't been any reports of any livestock attacks or other evidence related to a wild animal looking for food.

"We don't know what he's seen," Lankford said, referring to the farmer who reported the lion. Lankford hasn't spoken to Ross. "We don't know if he's seen a child with a bad haircut. We don't know because we haven't seen anything."

Brown has his doubts.

"We hear stuff like this all the time," he said. "People say they see lions and black panthers. There have been no signs. There has been no proof or picture or one hit by a car. It's just something we hear a lot. I'm not sure what the valid proof of this is. I haven't seen any."

The odds of wildlife escaping from the Conservators' Center is minimal, Brown said.

"That place is topnotch," Brown said. "For something to escape from there would be unlikely and if that happened, they would notify us immediately."

Brown thinks the farmers saw some other animal. Ross is adamant about what he saw.

"I seen him three times," he said. "I'd bet my life on it. It was a lion. I never seen a dog like that. I never seen a big cat like that."

I know both Sgt. Lankford and Officer Brown. Both stand up guys. I hope they are right in this case and the landowners are mistaken. I got the feeling though that there is more to this story. Knowing the landowners from my OP, they aren't the type to go off half-cocked and report something without knowing for sure what they are looking at.

I suppose if you hear stories of a Hunter's Ed Instructor in NC getting mauled by a lion, it's been nice knowing ya'll. .

[guntotin_fool]

Stand up guys or not, I trust land owners who know what lives around their land.


My FIL told me for years he had a cougar that worked the river bottoms that edged his property, the DNR steadfastly refused that he could be right, finally he called them and said come get it. He had taken it with a 12 gauge in the farrowing shed. DNR came and all stood around saying it wasnt so.

[Art Eatman]

My wife commented about the three different cougar sightings--south Georgia--that she'd had. Somebody got a bit huffy about how did she know what a cougar looked like. "They looked just like the cougar hide that's draped over our couch."

[FrontSight]

Amazing! You should set a trap & become even more famous..

Funny how they had to request to please not ridicule your name, and then you bust out the high end schooling with your “nomme de internet” line...that was a classic move on your part!

[rantingredneck]

I've never denied I was a redneck. But I'm also an educated redneck.


Basically I clean up nice.........