Here in Oregon, all of our liberals tell us we don't have a cougar problem...

The aliens must be beaming our deer into space and re situating them on another planet...

Last Friday night, my wife and I were taking my son to a weekend Boy Scout Camporee back in the Forest Service Land at a large campground.. that is about 20 miles off the paved highway..

At about 6:30 driving down the forest service road, I come around the corner in the car, and walking down the road, just as proud as it can be... was this cougar...

As soon as he saw our car, he bounded across the road, and into the brush.. I pulled the car up to where he dove into the brush and you could hear him running thru it..

I looked at my wife, who's immediate response was " My God, I didn't realize those things got that Big in the wild!" She has only ever seen a few in a zoo setting...

I asked my son, if he had seen it since he was sitting in the back seat... his response was "Holy Crap!, that thing was huge.. the only ones he has seen have also been in a zoo...

We were only about 50 yds from him when I came around the corner... If I had not only been doing 30 mph, and hitting the brakes, I would have nailed him!

If I had no had the family with me and would have had a rifle with me, or a shotgun, I'd have gone in after him.. as the brush was not really that thick in that spot...( I do have a tag to take one..)

This thing bounded across the road in two pounces...

I stopped at Wildlife Images.. a place her locally that takes injured animals from the wild, and takes care of them until they can be released in the wild.. if they can't, they sort of get sponsors to pay for there upkeep...they have a lot of California Hollywood Connections.. so money is not an issue for the place...it was started by some CA transplants that came from the movie industry in about 1980 or so..

They have 3 cougars at the Center... the largest is a male that they weigh at 185 lbs...

I went over & took a look at it, and the one we saw out in the forest, was substantially bigger than the biggest one at Wildlife Images....

I am just glad I came across it in the car.. instead of being out there on foot..

Of course being in the car, was probably the only reason that we even saw the animal.. if I had been on foot, I would have smelled and heard me coming and probably would have just taken off...

But I hunt that area and the deer population has gone from great to you hardly ever seen one anymore...

Last time I was out in the area shooting one of my rifles.. the report of the rifle brought a bear in to see what was going on... I gather he thought the rifle shot was a dinner bell...

I was spring Bear hunting in the Idaho panhandle a few years ago. We came out of the timber for lunch and while sitting in the truck, a young (2 yr old) Tom came out of the woods and laid down in the middle of the paved highway. We video'd him for 20 minutes before he got up and wandered down the hill. I saw tracks and found kill sites all week long. Never saw another cougar but no telling how many saw me. LDK

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Never saw another cougar but no telling how many saw me

That is exactly what I am busy thinking every time I am out in the woods out here...

Glad to see they are doing well in Oregon.

I follow GPS collared lions around-- they see us a whole lot more than we see them. Two of our collars are often very close to a town (3-4 times per week) and we have not yet had a report of a sighting. Nearly 3 years.

I have a funny feeling hound hunting will be returning soon....

IV

They're not just in Oregon!

Last fall I was hunting at my in-law's farm in North-east Nebraska, only about 10-15 miles south of the Missouri river.

Long story short: I walked out into the cow pasture to get in the deer stand; the moment I stepped off the wheel ruts onto frozen cottonwood leaves, I heard a bark/snarl/cough/scream, followed by something clawing its way up the nearest tree.

It was not only pitch-black but very foggy, and I could only see about 10 feet; if I turned on my headlamp, I could see about 3 feet.

Anyway, whatever it was sat up in that tree for the next 5 minutes, ripping up the bark, screaming at me, and just being generally ornery.

What could I do? I wasn't about to go back to the house on opening morning of deer season. So, I took three or four steps in the direction of the tree.

Whatever it was got out of the tree and ran the other direction. When it came down, there was a second or two from when I last heard the claws on the bark to when it landed in the leaves.

It then proceded to cover the 100 yards or so to the bordering gravel road in about 5 seconds; I could hear its foot-falls on the leaves only a dozen or so times as it crossed that distance. If that sounds too quick, remember that the world record for the 100 meter dash is sub 10 seconds--for a human biped!

Before that morning I never believed my in-laws when they talked about 'cougar. Now...they may just be right!

friar

In my wanderings here in Ca. I've run into three over the years. One in the Santa Cruz Mtns (central Ca), one in Plumas County (NE Ca), and one here in Humbolt Co (N coast Ca). Sightings in this area are not that all uncommnon.

Our DNR stedfastly says we do not have them in Georgia which is proven wrong from time to time. I've seen the tracks (no claw marks like a dog would leave), had them in the headlights on a 15,000 acre plantation I frequent. The most hair raising encounter was with one of my farmer friend's son...he was dropped off in the middle of a huge plantation his dad manages and was blood trailing a bow killed deer. He soon came up on a panther at about 10 yards....he had found his deer for him!! He hissed at him and bounded away, but not before he got a good look at his eyes and about fainted. He won't go to that part of the plantation again he says.

Oh well...we got 'em too, although it is embarrasing to hear the tales retold by some of our rednecks, as I am afraid we have the largest population of pure black panthers in North America! Nobody EVER sees one plain ol brown....its got to be black to make the story a good 'un.

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Our DNR stedfastly says we do not have them

Yeah, they give us the same speech here...

Then try to convince us with 10,000 hokey reasons of why the deer populations have declined 90% over the last 10 years...

Shoot, Shovel and Scoot!

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Originally posted by seafire/B17G:

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Our DNR stedfastly says we do not have them

Yeah, they give us the same speech here...

Then try to convince us with 10,000 hokey reasons of why the deer populations have declined 90% over the last 10 years...

Shoot, Shovel and Scoot!

Probably some more ingnorant scientific crap they try to fill your head full of..

I guess I never realized just how many folks are scared of lions. Suprised many of you can leave your house in the AM.

MG

I saw one two years ago near Bayou Deview, Arkansas. I was showing a duck woods to a client and we saw a big track. He thought it a bear and I said its a cat. We walked a little farther and a panther jumped up about 20 yards away. ran parallel to us and then bounded off through flooded woods. It was brown, not black. We call them panthers down here. I must know at least 20 people who have seen them. Arkansas Game and Fish swears there are no wild ones, only domestic escapees.If so, I no of several reported in the same areas for years. Do pretty well for cats raised as pets.

However, according to the book fron Stackpole, titled "the Eastern Cougar", there is in fact a wild breeding stock in Arkansas. I guess Arkansas G&F does not want to manage them, so they deny their existance. There is a lot of wild country along the White and Mississippi Rivers and in the Ozarks. I live in Memphis and we occasionally have reports of sightings near the Wolf River in our suburbs.

They are all over Calif. I've seen a few here including one huge black colored one near dublin Ca. above the freeway on a hillside didn't know they came in black but they do. Local park workers also have seen it . We're getting more and more sightings in cities police have had to shot a few. A month or so ago they had a couger on a elementry school grounds. Pleasenton,Ca. We need to hunt thewm again.

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Originally posted by Madgoat:
I guess I never realized just how many folks are scared of lions. Suprised many of you can leave your house in the AM.

MG

You sort of think of them as something off the Lion King from Disney???

Oh look at the nice big kitty kat????

I am not afraid of them, more along the lines of highly respect their abilities to kill and go undetected.... so I would rather kill them first...

But from the political forum I have seen you are also a Michael Moore type, so that explains your viewpoint...

Seafire, I live in serious lion country, and have for my entire life. They are all over the place where I live, and I have been fortunate enough on a couple of occasions to observe them in the wild. While I think it's neat that you're fortunate enough to live in a wild enough place to still have lions around, it seems from your post that you're deathly afraid of them.

You and your family have a WAY better chance of being seriously injured or killed by a drunk driver or even struck by lightening....by your comment "killing them first" just shows ignorance.

The old standby "they're more afraid of you than you are of them" holds true. I think your sighting is something 99% of folks in this country can't say they have ever (nor will ever) seen. But then again, the arrogant attitude of "kill what I don't understand" seems to still hold very true.

MG

I visit 3-5 kill sites a day during the summer and as many as I can in the winter. We have 15 lions collared and I have gone into their dens to weigh etc. kittens. The only time we ever see the mother is in the rare event she fails to detect our approach and we jump her out of the den. Typically, she doesn't go far and circles around us at about 30-40 meters while we spend 10-15 minutes with the kittens.

It is a fact in the area I work in:

1) hunters kill about 600 deer per year.
2) Lions kill about 1000 deer per year.
3) Automobiles kill about 1500 per year.

If your concerned about a "90%" decline in deer over the last 10 years (hypothetically...of course ) you probably have 2 choices:

1) Blame the lions and watch as your deer continue to disappear.
2) Get involved or support scientifically based research and listen to what the researchers -- ***NOT the Game Dept. or the local Cattlemans Assoc. , but the what the researchers on the ground tell you.

Game Department folks are great but too many times they are limited in what they can or will say because of office politics and Cattlemans Assoc. are not interested in wildlife science (anymore-- they used to be)-- only their own personal profits.

Good luck!

IV

Very interesting figures !! Here in NY and PA "mountain lions don't exist".In any case last season was one of the worst in my county and we know it's due to terrible management by our DEC whether or not lions exist !

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it seems from your post that you're deathly afraid of them.

I have experienced a stand off with one, and have also had one stalking a group of Boy Scouts on a night hike ( that I was leading, but was against them going on because of the danger of them... the scout leader wanted them to go on it.. so I went to be involved, in case there was a problem with one...)

It isn't a fear of them as much as a healthy respect for them!

I don't see the 'beauty' in them that other people see.. nor the nobility.....

We have way too many of them.. there are too many to just be one of nature's curiosities.....

Sure it was fun seeing one.. but at the same time.. If I did not have the family with me, but have had a rifle instead, I'd have gone after it!

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3) Automobiles kill about 1500 per year.

If your concerned about a "90%" decline in deer over the last 10 years (hypothetically...of course ) you probably have 2 choices:

1) Blame the lions and watch as your deer continue to disappear

Cars are certainly not killing 1500 deer a year in the back country where I live....nor on one lane forest service roads!