*sigh* Cougar Hanging Out In Area

I gotta agree with Bare and Marvella. The first thing I thought when I read this post was - No, you're hanging out in the cougars area.

You move to an area where cougars have been living longer than humans and put out chickens and dogs? What do you expect?

100 yards away when you live in the woods isn't exactly "coming around". Try having a little respect for the environment you decided to invade.

I'm not afraid of the woods. I have a healthy respect for it's other inhabitants as they usually do for me. Wherever did you get that idea?

Curious as to if the cat started coming around before or after you got your chickens?

We saw him (her?) originally back last October. Then a lull for a while, then it started coming around again.

And for all of you telling me to shut up because I live in cougar territory, gosh, that would be a real comfort and help to me if I have to bury one of my kids because I decided to take a laissez-faire attitude toward a large predator behaving abnormally.

Oh, and Dave, when the coug jumped out after the dog, it wasn't 100 yards. More like ten feet. But I"m sure THAT'S a safe distance, right? After all, I'm just trespassing on HIS territory.

Marvella - if you've got no problem using your kids for chum, I"d be happy to stake them out in the yard up here after dark. I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of, right? They should have no problems if we all join hands and sing Kumbaya to the coug. Music hath charms to soothe the savage...oh, nevermind.

But hey, armchair quarterback me all you want. Hubby and I will make the decision to do what's right for the safety and security of my family.

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Gun-toting, church-going, homeschooling, right-wing conservative, happily married, stay-at-home mom of three living in the real United States of America!

I agree with MOST of the group on this. You have to act FAST!!! Set up a blind and bait the cougar to bring it in close for a good, clean shot. It is obviously losing its fear of humans. This makes it too dangerous to save or try to repel away from your property. If it decides to stay away from you and your family, it will just go and eat someone elses children. I couldn't live with my conscious if that happened and I knew I could have prevented it. It is more humane for you to put it down with a good clean shot than to wait until hunting season when it might cross paths with an inexperenced or half-drunk hunter that only wounds it with a carelessly placed shot. If it doesn't know that it needs to stay far away from people then is an easy target for hunters that usually scare off most other animals.

Rick

I live in NE WA--about 8 miles from the Id border. I think you understand how dangerous that cougar or cougars are. Several people have been very badly hurt in NE Wa by cougars in the last year or so, at least 2 of them kids.

Our daughter who lives a mile from us lost two dogs to a cougar several years ago, one was a Gr. Pyr. The cat was living in a car someone dumped on an ajoining property. It was teaching the kids to hunt and killed the dogs even tho there were deer everywhere.

I think the DNR in ID would work with you to get rid of this cat. Here in WA they come out to verify a cougar and send in a hunter with dogs. This is legal if it is done by the DNR. I also believe that you can shoot it legally if it is aggressive. Call and ask the DNR. Usually they prefer to move or destroy the cat before there is a conflict.

The point is the cat has to go ----if it attacks it will be killed (by the state). It is not acting normally and it is much more important to protect your family and livestock than the cougar. Maggie

I should add that you aren't hunting the cougar, you are protecting yourself and your family from a very dangerous animal. You could try asking the cougar to go away until Oct. 1 when you can put it down without upsetting some bureaucrat, but I wouldn't recommend it. This cougar is stalking you and your family. That is why it keeps coming around your property. When it decides that the time is right it will make a meal out of someone.

If it were a sexual preditor, no one would care if you shot it. Since when is a cougar more valuable than a child?

Maggie, could you possibly steer me towards a report on those attacks? A quick google doesn't bring anything up about several attacks in NE Washington, or anything even close.

I even paid for an archives search of the Spokesman Review and didn't turn up anything, and we all know that any couger attack is going to be big news in that regional paper.

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First, men came a shore on this continent ,from other lands and started to get rid of any thing OR ONE who did not beleive as they did. In the City there were Chain link fences and Razor Wire. In the forest people reach out to attempt a SYMBIOTIC way of life with "other animals" then discover that what they were leaving behind in the cities (predators) appear again. Interesting, "who is doing the TRESS PASS"? We have predators who live next door to us, who have injured us, so we know . When the system will not help, what do you do ? older and tired.

This is the most important statement made on this topic.


[QUOTE= Hubby and I will make the decision to do what's right for the safety and security of my family.[/QUOTE]

"Honour their Trust"

No, it isn't. I'm from the Tri-Cities and any cougar attacks were relegated to a blurb on page five, right next to the DUI's and notices of whose golden anniversary was being celebrated at the Grange.

I'd love to know how many of those "White man raping the earth!" cougar lovers would put up with poisonous snakes in the barn, fire ants on the porch, rats in the kitchen or slugs amongst the cabbage patch. After all, it was their land first. Pest and predator control is a way of life whe you're out in the country. If the offender cannot be relocated then it must be dealt with by other means. Such is life.

ThreeJane, I recommend you call the authorities and report an aggressive mountain cat. Tell them what you've told us: it went for your husband and dog and has been stalking the property in a dangerous manner. Ask them to remove the cougar to another location. That's what locals did, anyway, and the authorities would truck the cat far into the wild and drop it off. Win-win scenario.

I would treat this cat as harsh and ruthlessly as I would any other homicidal maniac ,that was trespassing on my property and stalking my family.I certainly would not wait for big brothers permission!Protecting your family is not poaching!Its justifiable homicide.

Here's 2 from northeastern WA:
August. A cougar tore apart pieces of 5-year-old Carmen Schrock's skull at a campground near Metaline Falls, Washington (Spokane Spokesman-Review 9/4/99)
1999

24 August. Jacob Walsh of Kettle Falls, Washington, was dragged off by a lion that released him after being chased off by a screaming adult. This was the second attack in Washington in two years. (Spokane Spokesman-Review 9/4/99)
http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks_nonca.html

Better sourced:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=aug0598a
http://wdfw.wa.gov/depinfo/director/may0800a.htm
http://www.nwnews.com/editions/1999/...15/local4.html
http://nlrl.org/news_articles/cougarattacksmareWA.htm

And for all of you telling me to shut up because I live in cougar territory, gosh, that would be a real comfort and help to me if I have to bury one of my kids because I decided to take a laissez-faire attitude toward a large predator behaving abnormally.


1. show us where anyone said anything even remotely like this, to you.

Marvella - if you've got no problem using your kids for chum, I"d be happy to stake them out in the yard up here after dark. I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of, right? They should have no problems if we all join hands and sing Kumbaya to the coug. Music hath charms to soothe the savage...oh, nevermind.

2. my children grew up playing outside in the fields and forests of the appalachian mountains. we all soon learned there is very little to fear in the wild, unless you provoke it. sounds to me like you are exaggerating this tale for dramatic effect.

3. nowhere in this post, or in any of your posts, have you reported anything that makes me beleive you actually have a cougar in the neighborhood. you haven't seen it, you've only seen things that make you think it's a cougar.

kind of like the monsters under the bed.

conclusion? baiter.

Gee Marvella, Is reading an issue for you? If you READ her original post, it says that the cougar jumped at the dog with her husband standing next to it.
It also says that she caught the cougar in a spotlight. Not plain enough? "We've seen him around the edges of the property at least four or five times now, ..."
how bout that?
I also grew up playing outside in the fields and forests of the Appalachians, and guess what? There IS very little to fear there! Guess what else? The Appalachians are very different than the Selkirks and Cabinets where we live.

That was highly uncalled for.

gee, there's this... doesn't sound too definite to me. sounds like they're AFRAID.

At least hubby thinks he jumped at the dog. Privately, I think he might've been jumping hubby (who was armed, BTW) and then changed his mind when he saw the dog.

Thanks Lisa, I actually read that page, but was looking for the reported several occurrences in our area in the last year or so. As that report points out, instances of cougar attacks are quite rare, and in those particular two cases dating back six and seven years, the children did survive.

I knew when I responded to this thread that I was treading on dangerous ground. I hope you and ThreeJane understand that I'm not making any personal judgements against anyone. Each has to use their own common sense about reacting to any perceived threats, real or imagined.

I've lived in lion country all my life, I've hunted them, I love to eat them. I wasn't there that night near the chicken coop, when the lion "jumped out at the dog", but I wouldn't be at all surprised by something like that. It's hard to tell from that description whether the lion was being aggressive or was just reacting to being startled by the dog and human interaction. Lions will often turn and defend themselves from pursuing dogs.

Part of what makes this area special to me is that as far as I know, it has the only truly intact ecosystem left in the lower 48 states, in that every major species of critter that lived here historically, still exists here. It's only been in the last few years that the area around Farragut or even the whole Sandpoint to Coeur d' Alene corridor has turned into suburbia. Heck, it hasn't even been 15 years since the only business north of Cd'a was the Hydra drilling business has it?

I guess I'm just saddened to see all this growth chase out our remaining wildlife because folks are so quick to pull the trigger as a prevention to perceived fears or risks. Personally, I LIKE the feeling of living in an area that has a risk, however small, of being put in my place by a charging lion. Life without risk or challenge is boring!

__________________
Iraq casualties
3,410 American deaths to date in Iraq
25,345 Americans wounded in action to date (your guess how many have died since and been uncounted)
$424,000,000,000 to date