Stalking the Giant Puma


Originaly Entitled: "Finding the Giant Ego!"

Interesting story. Though he do exaggerate abit. Thanks

quote:

Originally posted by SGraves155:
Interesting story. Though he do exaggerate abit. Thanks

yep,he do

quote:

Originally posted by Nickudu:
(....)

Originaly Entitled: "Finding the Giant Ego!"

I wonder why

Interesting reading, thou ...

We saw many of the birds called "chaja" while in Argentina. They are turkey sized birds with a ruff around the neck, and they have claws where their wings fold. They are also said to mate for life, and to remain single if the mate dies. Here are some internet photos.

Steve,
As you may know, chajás have a very loud voice that works like a "swamp alarm" and usually means something is walking around (with two or four legs).

If you are hunting pigs the alarm may indicate that the pigs started moving...

The same works with the teru teru a very similar bird but much smaller, both had the crest behind the head and claws in their wings.

In Africa I have seen a very similar bird to the "tero" but I remember its name.

L

Lorenzo:

The author of that terrible story claims the "giant puma" weighed 350 pounds and was nine feet long.

That has to be pure B.S., of course, but how large do South American pumas get? I always thought they were a but smaller than those in North America.

Could your African bird "similar to the tero" have been a spur-winged goose?

Bill Quimby

Yes this relate can be a bit exagerated ,but in Los Andes mountains in Mendoza and another provinces at high altitude there are huge pumas ,i saw photos and i couldnt believe the size ,the hunters use high altitude techniques and equipment to hunt them.The record in the ARGENTINE BIG GAME FEDERATION is a huge lion killed by Varela Jorge and when he presented the trophy nobody believes that was a skull of a puma so it was sent to a museum in LA PLATA city to find out if it was a puma or a jaguar skull ......i know that very few of the mountain hunters are members of the SCI so a lot of the lions taken arent from the mountains.Pedro Nogues a well known SCI member and fan mountain hunter hunts in this manner .But until now there are not outfiters that offer that kind of expeditions here.Juan

When we hunted with natives in the swamps of the north they asked us to kill a chaja ,then they prepared very tasty empanadas with the meat .Juan

You ate a chaja !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Puaj !!!

For its size has less meat than a bird's knee....

One should never shoot an hornero, a tero, a chaja, or an eagle...

Empanadas de chajá...Juan estás loco, tan cara está la carne de vaca ???

L

GMaxson, did you get it mounted?

GMaxson,
Don't brag around with that bird because you will end in jail

At least here in Uruguay they are very protected. It's like shooting a white stork on its way to Paris...

L

quote:

At least here in Uruguay they are very protected.

Looks like that big chicken forgot his protection!

Juan, the old tracks that we took pictures of, and the fresh tracks that we found later, were from a very large puma. If they had been leopard tracks, they would have been from a 200# size cat, but I think pumas may have slightly larger feet for body size. Do you know the body-weight of the very large mountain puma to which you refer in your post?

Steve,
I don't know how much they can weight but as Juan said, those mountain pumas are much bigger than the ones found in more tropical climates.

There are different sub-species of pumas all along the Americas.

I have seen pictures of mountain pumas hunted up in the mountains of Neuquén province and some of them were really BIG cats.

L

"Pumas are larger toward the extreme southern or northern parts of their range (away from the equator) and have large feet and proportionately, the longest hind feed of the cat family."

"According to its wide distribution there are many subspecies of the Puma, showing a wide variability. The northernmost and southernmost subspecies, the Pumas of Canada and Patagonia, are by far the largest."

Nickudu, thank you for confirming my suspicions regarding pumas having larger (at least longer) hind feet. As you know, the Fore-Print of most quadripeds is the larger track, and I wonder how this relates in size as comparatively to the other great cats? This picture shows a puma track near the San Francisco/ Cordoba area, which would be mid-range, North to South, of the pumas in SA. The shell is a 12 gauge, and one of the big Bic Lighters.

Steve - This puma obviously has enormous rear feet as he is sporting size 12ee hunting boots!

I'm thinking the puma tracks are fresher than the boot tracks, but I could be wrong! Although Juan had walked down this route about 5 yards in front of me!