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Originally Posted by chamoisee
I do understand where you folks are coming from. In Lisa's defense, though: we live in an area that is inundated with new arrivals who move here because it's "beautiful" and then want to shoot or kill or bulldoze most of what they see. If they see a coyote, it's a threat- bang! Same for any rodents at all, weasels, insects, bats, skunks, owls, hawks, etc etc.... I have no idea why they move here, but we do get burned out on them.
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Dixielee's husband here.
I registered here a couple of days ago, but I can't post anything under my handle yet for some reason.
Here it is the old timers, the people who were born here, that shoot every preditor on sight. Before you think overly badly of them, their very lives depended on their being able to raise livestock and crops. They learned from their parents, and grand parents. While there were more of them still alive (many of the old timers have died of old age, and their children have moved to the cities) , and before the State started treating preditors like characters out of "Bambi", there wasn't any preditor problem out here.
It is us relative "Newcomers" (I have been here over 30 years) who try to live in harmony with all of nature.
For example, when a mother black bear got chased away and left two cubs in a tree near our chicken coop, I built a small platform as high up the tree as I could and fed and watered the cubs on it for two days, until the mother bear came back for them. The oldtimers would have shot the cubs and said "good riddance" to two more preditors.
When I used a preditor call to try to hunt the cougar, it would often lure coyotes and hawks in. I could have killed several, but I was only after the cougar.
Once we even took in a starving orphanned coyote cub, fed it, gave it a bath, removed all of the ticks and released it. When we learned that it had a sister who was also starving we left food near their den until they were strong enough to hunt for themselves.
Because we had LGD we have never lost livestock to coyotes.
We did have over a dozen chickens slaughtered by a weasle once, and I killed it, with no regrets what so ever.
I/we knew the huge cougar was here. Dixielee had seen it.
----! Almost everybody around this area had seen it.
It simply wasn't terribly afraid of people or dogs.
I/we believe that it had been somebodies pet, that was released. That would account for it's extreme size. (Front paw prints slightly over 5 inches)( average cougar prints at 3 1/2 inches)
Still it had never bothered our goats, chickens, or dogs, although when it was around close the dogs were nervous.
It is very likely that if I had made a real effort, that I could have trapped it or shot it. Like a complete fool I believed the drivil that Mountain lions won't attack people.
The reality is that cougars DO attack people. In fact it is happening more often as the Protected cougars loose their fear of humans. Over 50% of the confirmed cougar attack in the US and Canada have taken place in just the last 10 years !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We fought the State of Arkansas for almost a year, trying to get them to admit that there were some "Big cats" in the State, and that one of them killed Dixiee's sister.
The State tried to say that it was our own LGD's (2 older Black labs, and 4 that were 75% hungarian Kuvaz)( the Kuvaz are a slightly smaller version of the Pyrenese and a 2,000 year old LGD breed) that killed her. It Took us almost a year to get the State Medical examiner to release a statement on the cause of death. They admitted that a cougar may have been in the immediate area, but claimed that the attack was by "Dogs". They did NOT claim that it was our dogs, because NOT one of the bite marks on the body matched the impressions taken of all of our dog's teeth.
The local newspaper, which is part of the "Good Old Boys Club" ran extremely negetive stories about how our own dogs did the attack. On one front page thay said that a broken dog tooth had been found in one of the wounds on the body. The State Medical shortly came out with the fact that what had been found was NOT a tooth at all, but was in fact a small white pebble.
The Clinton Rag failed to report the Pebble.
Because of the "Good old Boys" lies, a neighbor watched the cougar playing and hunting in a field near here for over a week, but never told us. We DID NOT get very much cooperation from the Locals because of the lies.
Even today some people here think that it was our own dogs that did the attack, and that we made the whole "cougar story" up to prevent being charged for the death of Dixielee's sister.
Talk about dredging up some bad memories!
In the end the State issued a statement that there is likely a large breeding population of Non natural (decendants of released, or escaped cougars) cougars in the State. It was a small victory, but a victory still.
Below is a article about African lions that were released about 50 miles from here. This happened about a year before our attack. There were more articals about the African Lions, some of the articals stated that the locals had seen at least 7 (Seven) lions loose in the area. This was the only artical that we could find on the internet after the attack.
The Lions that were not killed by the locals, were NOT hunted down by the State. Nothing at all was done.
Notice the heading of the artical.
Premonition by the editor?
Who knows? Maybe what we had out here wasn't a cougar at all.
Several people who saw the "Cougar" stated that it had a body length of 6 foot,
not counting the tail. Our neighbor who saw it, got that measure because he saw the cat cross a 9 foot wide dirt road, and he then measured the road.
The man who reads the electric meters out here, saw it chase a deer past his slow moving truck and stated that it's body was as long as his truck bed.
People who saw it said that it stood close to 3 foot high at the shoulders. This was one
BIG cat no matter what else.
One woman watched it for several minutes, at less than 50 yards. She said he had a big head and very musclular, broad chest, which does not sound very much like a cougar.
Female African lions do resemble Cougars, closely enough to be mistaken, especially if you were where you would not be expecting to see any female African lions. Because we never had a honest investigation, it is very likely that we will never know. Arkansas is a "Exciting" place to live. We now HATE "Exciting" !
Big Cat Attack?
Four Lions Killed in Arkansas Woods, More Feared on the Loose
By Douglas Pils
The Associated Press
Q U I T M A N, Ark., Sept. 24
— Lisa Vaughan says her log cabin in the woods was so peaceful that sometimes the only sound that could be heard was the trees swaying in the wind.
Now she's listening for lions.
In the past week, four 600- to 800-pound African lions believed to have some connection to a nearby exotic animal farm have been killed near this central Arkansas town. And residents say the terror may not be over, because no one knows for sure whether more lions are on the loose.
"I had a terrible headache and my blood pressure has been up. … It's been a long ordeal," said Vaughan, whose husband, Johnny, killed two of the lions with his .30-06 rifle.
"Everybody is scared around here," added neighbor Arvil Skinner. "People have to sit out with a high-powered rifle just to let their kids play in the yard.
"That's just how serious it is. It might be all right and it might not. They might still be out there. We just don't know."
The Vaughans believe the lions belong to animal farm operator Steve Henning, who moved in on the other side of the patch of trees almost a year ago with 11 African lions, 30 tigers, five mountain lions and a lynx.
Henning says the lions killed in the woods were not his. He speculates that someone who tried to give him lions last week turned them loose on the 44-acre property of Safari Unlimited, the lion and tiger farm he operates. The farm is not open to the public, Henning said.
More Big Cats Roaming Woods?
Aside from the pens where Henning keeps his cats, the property is not fully fenced.
Neighbors expressed disbelief over Henning's response.
"That really blows my mind how anyone could believe that story," Lisa Vaughan said.
Henning was not able to give Cleburne County sheriff's deputies or Arkansas Game and Fish officials the name of a person they could track down, authorities said.
"Mr. Henning told us the guy goes by different names and he doesn't know where he lives," Deputy Jack Allen said.
Sheriff Dudley Lemon inspected Safari Unlimited and said he thinks Henning is telling the truth. But he added that believing Henning's story does mean more big cats could be roaming the woods.
Johnny Vaughan said he will be the first to apologize to Henning if it's proven the lions that have been killed didn't belong to him. But he and his neighbors around this town of 700 want local laws amended so that Henning can't keep lions and tigers in their neighborhood.
"We've got to try and pass something to not only protect the people, but to protect the animals," Vaughan said. "It's sad to think that someone can have that many animals but they don't need some sort of license."
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
So, they admitted it, yet offered no further info or solution to dealing with them.
