*sigh* Cougar Hanging Out In Area

Where our families are in volved, lets wake up It is simple SSS Today SSS Yesterday and SSS tomorrow. Jay

Heh, ain't looked at prices up here have you? It's nothing anymore to see 20 acres of cut-over land going for 200,000. Besides it ain't much of a bug out area anymore, it's not much different than your area, except fast food joints haven't made it here yet.

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Our long term solution is a LGD (Livestock Guardian Dog). Here's our tale of woe. that turned out well. We've had to eliminate only one feline recently. Smart rascal outfoxed two LDGs.

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The ~ox-{ at http://www.singingfalls.com is grateful.

y'know TJ, you and lisa have been very rude to me for no good reason. there was really no need for either one of you to get so snippy because i questioned what you said. i frequently make a point on this board of questioning the latest bear/ wild hog/ mountain lion/ scary thing in the woods stories, because most of the time, as i said, it turns out to be the family dog. yes, i said it "dog" again. deal with it. if your sighting turns out to be a real live mountian lion, then you've gotten tons of advice about what to do about it, including a lengthy discussion by some people of how to hide the radio collar if it has one. i suggest you take that advice.

you never really answered my original question - if you are so afraid of wild things, why do you live there? simple question, should be a simple answer.

yes bare, there are wild boars here, as well as confirmed mountain lion sightings, even tho the world that says they are extinct here. a large part of where i live is national park as well as national forest. it is part of the park rangers job to go out and have themselves a hog killing party a few times a year. they're very destructive and dangerous. i supposedly ate one, once. darn best pork i ever tasted.

Ox, we have 3 Great Pyrenees and they do a terrific job of keeping away the cats. I would not particularly like to have to kill a cat or bear; the dogs keep them at bay so they don't become a problem.
Marvella, I don't even know what to say to you. You seem to not be able to grasp that the cougar was seen plainly and identified as such. There is no mistaking a dog for a full-grown cougar. Why you would keep prattling on about it possibly being a dog is beyond me. You've been told that if ThreeJanes husband shoots it, he has a legal tag, so there is no issue of "disposing" of it. And I've said absolutely nothing to indicate that I am "afraid" of the woods. You have a very rude and high-handed manner and I'm done talking to you. The posts on this thread speak for themselves.

Bare said
Here, have some cheese with that whine...a five acre pacel two lots down was just listed for 225K...no septic, no water, except for a trout spawning stream running through it (watershed, don't look at the stream it may kill the fish!)

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Mustang Diaries

"It's called a lance...hellooo!"

see lisa, and three jane while i'm at it, i never said anything to either of you or said anything that about it not being a cougar. everything i said was in very general terms about "some people do this, and "often that happens"...however, both of you CHOSE to take it personally, which makes me believe both of you were just looking for a fight, which in my book, counts as baiting.

and yes, the posts speak for themselves. it was y'all who started all the snarky name calling. and kept it up. glad i don't have to listen to it anymore. thanks!

I don't think it's them doing the baiting.............................

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Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain
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Enforced tolerance is oppression

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

we have cougers here in michigan, the guy down the road from me lost a horse to them a couple of nights ago, and last night I heard them. them make a sound that you will never forget. I think that they are protected here, but sure scares me. I have calves, horses, chickens, and goats. they eat all of them.I don't like them hanging around here.

Let me get this straight:

Point 1: You have pets and small children and they are outside occasionally
Point 2: You have a carnivorous predator outdoors regularly
Point 3: This predator is not scared of human activity
Point 4: This carnivore comes within 20' of your front door and remains - sometimes for minutes at a time
Point 5: You haven't shot it yet

Can you identify the single point above that seems to be the REAL failing in all this?

I many (most) states, if your neighbor doesn't control his dog, and that dog endangers your livestock, you can shoot their dog on your property. This is a MOUNTAIN LION... M O U N T A I N L I O N. It kills and eats as a primary activity. It isn't a big "kitty".

I don't respect that naturalist view of "it's his habitat" and such absolute crap... but I DO respect the "kill only what needs killing" approach. I would resist killing a lion in the wild or in the open, BUT I WOULD NOT COMPROMISE THE SAFETY OF MY KIDS. I'll tell you, if that were a PERSON (child molester?) that I had warned to stay away, had called the police about, and still came within 20' of my door, I'd drop them too.

SHOOT IT - and do it now. It may decide to eat a child before Oct 1.

R

After we acquired our first LGD (Hungarian Kuvasz) we had no problems for the seven years we had him. We currently have a Polish Tatra and a Great Pyrenees. The Pyr is still a pup but she's coming along fine.

To tell the truth, going hunting for lions is nothing but an extra and unwanted job for our operation. We are shepherds/fiber crafters by vocation. I'd rather spend the time on something more productive. Our experience is that they will come back until they are stopped. If you read the article they decimated our herd several years in a row in broad daylight!

A healthy ecological environment would sustain 3 or 4 felines in our area (three females and a male). In 1998 the State of Oregon collared 98 cats in this area as part of a study. During that period three of the lions we killed were not collared.. So you can see that the whole thing is out of whack and we deal with it as we can. Life is much easier with the LGDs I can assure you.

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The ~ox-{ at http://www.singingfalls.com is grateful.

I know this isn't a big kitty, and I will shoot shovel and sut up, [they are protected here I think], but I wasn't about to go into that barn last night by my self. just no way.
I will shoot, and carry a gun all around the homestead wit hme now, during day light hours. we have way to much woods here, lots of hidding places.

Shoot, shovel & shut up. That cat is reading your place like a menu.

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Freedom isn't Free

yep, when i moved into my last house near the nf, we heard one yelling in the first week or two we were there. never saw one. my son did tho! he was headed to my house, and about a mile before he got there came across a lion and two cubs!! he said the mother and one cub ran off into the woods, but the other cub ran up a fallen tree. old timers have been saying they were still around alll along, but officially, they are supposed to be extinct in this part of the country. what they are is very well hidden. the more people that came and settled back there, and the more big trees the forest service cut down, the fewer and fewer there were. i had a LOT more trouble out of outsiders and their pet dogs, moving in and messing with my animals, than any wild animal. got a good pack of dogs, and a GP with the goats. since i've been at this new place, i've never lost the first critter except what we killed for supper.

yup your right, I don't have any peacocks this morning, and missing chickens. We will be adding tons more out door lights. The goats are all moved up close to the house. and the calves, just came back in. We have a huge barn, and I know that they could be in there, or in the back barn, but i am not going out to check. will have some people here around 5 pm, and we will check then. I am not going out alone to check, because I heard more than one.

I have no small children. just me, and I shoot really good , better than dh, but just not going out back alone.

They are supposedly "extinct" here as well... even though I have spotted two, and several others have as well. A year or so ago, the DNR fianally had to face the fact that we DO have cougar in the area when horses (Full grown mind you) were attacked (one killed) by a cougar and there were feces turned in that are unmistanenly cougar. Don't believe the gov't when they try to pacify the people by saying it's totally safe and there are no <insert predator here> in that area. I respect the cougar and their habitat... but let one start snatchin my critters or threatening myself or my kids... and I'd be the first to take care of the problem. It's a touchy topic... they were here first, and we have invaded and destroyed much of their habitat... but where to draw the line? DEFINATLY if a cougar deems my kids or myself as a food source!

Kaza

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well, hey, you deal with it your way, I'll deal with it mine. I'm glad you've got the holier-than-thou attitude about the animals. I'm sure they'll hold it in good stead if they decide to start munching on your goats.

People like you always throw in the incendiary comments like "Make sure you know what you're shooting it, usually it's the family dog" and then when you're called on it, you have the gall to say, "Well gosh, I was making a general statement, I wasn't talking about YOU specifically"...even though you've made it as a direct reply in a thread talking about the same subject.

Whatever, I'm done with you, this is getting boring.

Everyone else, thank you for the good info and backup. I appreciate it.

bare: always fun to fence.

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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!

A couple of years ago i was east of the Steins in Oregon on a fishing trip when we spied a mountain lion sitting and watching a herd of cows and calves. The lion ran off as we drove up. We went up to the ranch house and told the rancher about the lion watching his livestock. He said it happens all the time and that they had killed eight mountain lions so far that year. For some reason the population of mountain lions seems dramatically on the uprise. I don't think it is because of a lack of hunting since about the same amount of lions is killed each year, mostly because of livestock predation. It probably has something to do with the large amount of prey animals available. In any case, since the lions are not likely ever to be endangered, fifty years of bounty hunting couldn't eradicate them, shooting them and keeping your mouth shut should be an option. Guard dogs are another good option. There is plenty of game out there for lions and any lion removed because of conflicts with people will soon be replaced by another lion, hopefully one more compatiible with his human neighbors. Wolves are another matter and hopefully you will not have to deal with them any time soon.

Interesting and entertaining thread.

This summer we lost our eight goslings when we left the house for a couple hours in the late morning. The adult geese were fine, not a feather missing. We scoured our property and could not find a trace of the missing babies. Except we did find big cat tracks down by our creek where the ground was damp. We heard that there were cougars in the area bothering other people though, so kept our eyes open to that possibility.

About a week later, the dogs started acting funny all the time, so one night we put the dogs inside and dh and I sat outside. Dh had a shotgun on his lap, didn't take too long until we spied the cat on the edge of the woods about 100 ft away. Took about a hour of watching us, then decided that we were not going to harm it, and walked straight across our front lawn only stopping it's slow walk to stop and stare at us, and then it would walk some more. We didn't shoot it. It's been three months and we still see tracks down at the creek, but it has not bothered our almost 200 chickens, geese, rabbits, turkeys, dogs or kids.

My kids are older (15,12,9,9) and usually one of the older two has a rifle on them if they are too far from the house playing.

Now if we ended up missing too many animals, we would have shot it. If we had smaller kids who we felt were threatened, we would shoot it.

In this case, the cougar had to eat, we didn't feel threatened, so it can live, and in all honesty I really really enjoyed watching this creature walk thru our property.