Kitty of Cougar ????

LisaInN.Idaho · #41 12/23/13, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gravytrain

Oh, yes. Rattlers, coyotes, bears and bobcats are certainly here. I see them regularly on my trailcams, see them as roadkill, are documented in news footage, newspaper stories with pictures, and are recognized by conservation officers and wildlife biologists. Mountain lions, on the other hand, have not been documented by any of these means. I don't wish it to be so. I think a breeding population of EMLs would be pretty neat.

I had this same argument about a decade ago with some hunting acquaintances. I was on the other side of the argument, however. As a biologist I understood the stealthy, solitary nature of mountain lions. With all the stories of sightings that I had heard, surely at least a small population of wild EMLs existed. I myself thought I saw, as I rode down the road, what looked like a puma roadkill near Garland, PA in 1986. After a prolonged argument with this guy, I asked how he could be so sure that there were no puma in PA...He responded, "Give me one single shred of documented evidence that there ARE EML in PA". So I dug and researched and talked to wildlife biologists, read scientific papers on the EML, searched news databases and microfiches looking for evidence to prove this pompous doofus wrong. Guess what? there isn't any documented evidence.

I'm not debating that people believe they have seen EMLs in PA, and I'm not calling anyone a liar. I'm simply saying, in this age of smartphones, 24/7 news cycles, a media that likes to sensationalize every odd news story, easily accessible archived news stories, personal video cameras, instant messaging, SMS messaging, MMS messaging, hundreds of thousands of trail cams, home surveillance systems, facebook, etc., etc., etc., that there would be some physical evidence that they inhabited this part of the country. Certainly the climate here is favorable to them, there is a smorgasbord of prey for them here...would be easy pickings. There are lots of remote forests and mountains for them to roam. If they were here wouldn't they flourish under these conditions? Wouldn't there be YouTube videos showing dog vs. lion, lion vs deer, lion vs. bear, like you see all the time out west?

Debbie Downer.

I'll bet you don't think there are really any chupacabras or Sasquatch out there either.

LittleRedHen · #42 12/23/13, 10:25 AM

It doesn't look proportionate so I am voting for a kangaroo that dropped something.. Or... just a regular domestic cat that was greatly zoomed in upon

ronbre · #43 12/23/13, 03:24 PM

supposedly there aren't any here in Michigan either where I'm at..but there are.

HuskyBoris · #44 12/24/13, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronbre

supposedly there aren't any here in Michigan either where I'm at..but there are.

I have heard of sightings in SE Michigan and a few in N. lower,my neighbor said he seen one as well and I believed,he's not a big BS'r kinda guy but I never have.
sometime ago 20 yrs?,a horse farm by my parents had an attack on a horse that came from above by a BIG cat,probably a cougar,,they were here before and I think now they are back.
during hunting season I had a Bobcat come in front of,,he seen me and crouched down in the and weeds at the side of the ditch,,he stared at me for good 1/2 hour,,what a creepy feeling,I can't imagine getting stared down or stalked by a cougar.
BTW the Michigan DNR have updated their cougar position

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7...3232--,00.html

and here
http://savethecougar.org/

LittleRedHen · #45 12/24/13, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronbre

supposedly there aren't any here in Michigan either where I'm at..but there are.

I am not terribly far from you... but people over this way have been catching them on their game cams so the DNR no longer denies it. Though they had been denying it til recently.

plowhand · #46 12/25/13, 09:04 PM

Kills -- when they kill something, they typically drag it into dense brush under a tree and then scrape vegetation over it

A dear friend of our family would occasionally tell of the last "bearcat" killed in our county. He was born around 1900. A caretaker found a deer, killed partially eaten, covered with leaves and pinestraw. He stood watch and shot the panther when it came back to feed. It was around 1920....where Ocean Lakes Campfround is near Myrtle Beach, SC.

20 years later nobody done much deer hunting..no deer in many communities, just those near large swamps, and river swamps, no large game around. People hunted small game. Nowadays there are deer in ever little head a woods, beavers are every where, turkeys fly over your car while your driving......whose to say the painters, bearcats,cougars ain't coming back too!

Oh yeah, I've a neighbor, be 92 in a few weeks can tell you which neighbor killed the last wild turkeys in the community, where they roosted, and how many they were. He still bear hunts. Several years ago the wildlife agency brought in turkeys...it's easy to see flocks of 20 to 60 turkeys every week now!

dizzy · #47 12/26/13, 05:41 AM

I know when we got our house, we'd occasionally hear turkeys in the woods next to us, but never saw any. Then about 10 years ago, we'd start to see them occasionally and it was always a big deal. Now, I normally can't go in the woods w/out seeing either the turkeys or where they've been. And, I have found them roosting as well. I had 2 of them in my garden the other day.

We've been told we don't have cougars in this area as well. But, I've talked to people who say they've seen them, or evidence of them. And these are people that aren't going to be fooled. I recall hearing about a woman who was killed by one in another state where they aren't supposed to be. There are areas around here that are so dense and/or swampy, that for the most part, no one goes in there. So, who's to say for sure what's there.

Karen · #48 12/26/13, 06:05 AM

I always wonder about wildlife and theory of "documented proof". Just because there is no documented proof doesn't mean a sighting or that particular spieces in that location doesn't exist.

In fact, there always has to be a 'first' sighting for the documented proof to even begin. If someone dismisses that first as, "it can't be" and, therefore does not document it, then subsequent sightings could also be dismissed. It wouldn't be until the population of the species significantly increases (thus sightings increase) before the documented proof begins to exist. But the species could have already existed there for very long periods of time before it was documented.

Look at all the new species science is now finding in remote places. It isn't that they are 'new', rather that they have existed for many years in that location but never documented before; probably due to an increase in population or migrating.

Plus, who's to say this photo (regardless of the quality of the photo) that this isn't first documented sighting. Sometimes we dismiss possibilities too quickly. When it comes to God's creatures, they have a marvelous way of adapting and migrating in ways and, in places, that we would never think possible!

Paquebot · #49 12/26/13, 06:18 PM

The problem with a lot of "sightings" of exotic animals is that it's usually in the warmer part of the year. Those animals then become like magic in the winter as they can wander around for months and never once leave a single track!

Martin

AriesMaverick · #50 12/26/13, 08:32 PM

My dad hit a black panther in AL a couple years ago (three of my brothers were with him). My mom picked the hair out of the bumper and put it in a little baggy to bring to the university. Before she was able to do that though, one of my siblings cleaned out her desk and threw the baggy away (thinking it was old hair clippings from a younger sibling). Needless to say...we were very upset.

But then my dad saw another cougar run across the property just a couple months ago. They took pix of the marks it left on the gravel driveway.

plowjockey · #51 12/28/13, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haypoint

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6fZAnqdKvc

Not surprised.

We had a male barn cat that moved into the wild for the summer, returning recently.

The thing is like a monster, twice the size it left. Has a neck at thick as a linebacker. Some healed fighting scars.

It's still friendly, but looks like it could ruin one's day, pretty easy, if it really wanted to.

MichaelZ · #52 12/28/13, 11:43 AM

I vote Kitty. Cougars have more muscular front legs where as house cats have large back legs and small front legs.