Puma?

[Zonie]

Puma? Mountain Lion? Catamount? Whatever you call it, I thought you might be interested in an occurance here in Arizona.
Several months ago, a Lion was stalking people as they walked thru one of the scenic canyons down by Tucson. The Game and Fish people wanted to dispatch it but the wild animal lovers got the state stirred up to the point that the G&F dept had to spend gobs of money to live trap it. It is now sitting in Scottsdale where it will remain until someone comes up with a plan for it.

2 weeks ago nearer to Phoenix, a young Lion stalked a Mountain Bike (bicycle) rider forcing him off of his bike. He threw rocks at it hitting it several times before it decided to leave.
The G&F department sent in a couple of rangers and lo and behold, the Lion started stalking them as well. One of the rangers promptly dispatched the cat with his sidearm.
Now the animal lovers are shreeking for punitive action against the rangers because they didn't go into the area with live traps etc. and they had the nerve to carry weapons and shoot the poor creature!

I sometimes wonder if these people care about other people.

PS: The young Lion only weighed 80 pounds. Now what could a 80 pound Lion possibly do to a 170 pound man?

 

[cayugad]

Some of these animal rights groups really feel that wild animals have a greater right to do their thing then the people that live or visit the area. They are upset that wildlife officers shot a dangerous lion that was stalking them. Give me a break... :redface:

Maybe they should have called the local loud mouth from the animal rights group and told them to tie a pork chop around their neck and go get their kitty....

Our society has gone to far the other way when it comes to animal rights . We really have to look at what is more important. Take this case for example. What if the cat was stalking a bus load our kids on a school nature trip. Now who has the most rights?

 

[Stumpkiller]

I sometimes wonder if these people care about other people.

Give me a puma over a person anyday. We got lots of people, but not many big cats. Makes the outdoors more exhilirating if there is some risk involved. Stay indoors if you don't like the nasties and bities out there.

Heck, cars wipe out how many mountain bikers a year? We're not shooting all the cars are we?

Can't blame the cat. I've had ATVers spoil my hunt and I weighed the gun in my hand with a few black thoughts myself.

 

Awe don't get me started on the bunny huggers!!!! :curse: :curse:
I didn't get this high on the food chain to exist eating carrots!
P.E.T.A. members are the most delusional bunch there is.
Here's a true P.E.T.A. story. Just a couple miles south of the city I policed there was a mink farm. You know, a renewable resource and an income for the owner and hired hands. Well P.E.T.A. people picketed the guys place and he had to get a court order to keep the fuzzy huggers off his property.
That very night person(s) unknown released everyone of the caged mink. Thousands of them! Now farm mink are NOT tame. There were hundreds hit on the roads and highways, the rabbit population declined to near nothing, and no ones house cat was safe out at night (wasn't all bad hey? : The environmental damage was terrible, and most likely all those mink starved or were hit by cars and waisted.
No one was ever prosecuted and the mink farmer went belly up over it.
The perps did no favor for the mink or anyone else. :curse:

 

[bob1961]

PS: The young Lion only weighed 80 pounds. Now what could a 80 pound Lion possibly do to a 170 pound man?

the same thing my cat does to a rabbit :shocking:.........................bob

 

[SquirrelsaurusR]

The perps did no favor for the mink or anyone else.

That reminds me of the E.L.F. people a few months back who torched a bunch of SUV's on that dealer's lot, to protest how 'terrible' SUV's are for the environment. They caused a bunch of air pollution from all the burning vehicles, oil, tires, etc. And the rest of all the oil, gas, and anti-freeze that didn't burn was spilled all over the ground. I guess they're of the mentality that considers this 'acceptable losses' in order to justify making their political statement. Just like the P.E.T.A. and A.L.F. boneheads.

 

[musketman]

Now the animal lovers are shreeking for punitive action against the rangers because they didn't go into the area with live traps etc. and they had the nerve to carry weapons and shoot the poor creature!

Simple answer...

Have the animal rights people trap the lion... :winking:

Once a few of them get eaten, then they'll sue the rangers for not doing their job.....

No win either way...

 

[Deadeye]

We have as lot of them here. I've seen them as as close as the street in front of my house and as close as about 2 feet in the wild. Have had them come in to varmint calls.
A local man was knocked down about a month ago when a young cat jumped on his back while he was out hunting dropped antlers. Had a backpack on and wasn't hurt and having no gun was able to chase it away with rocks. It was a young cat just practicing for the real thing. On the mt. on the west side of our valley they gave out 40 lion tags, those tags were filled in 2 weeks, they gave out 30 more and in a short time they were also filled. That was about 2 or 3 yrs. ago and we have some deer on that mt. now. 70 lions will kill 4 to 5000 deer a yr.

 

[leadball]

Most animal rights activists i have met have lived all their lives in urban areas. They are detached from the tooth and claw world of ma nature.

 

[roundball]

Yes...I certainly think they're detached all right !!

 

Reminds me of the time the government was going to poison some wolves in Alaska. The outrage from the lower 48 stopped the action, so the game branch said they'd live-trap wolves and send them to the people who wanted them saved - no takers.- So they got poisoned- perfect!
: Poisoning, done correctly, targets only the wolves & no other species, even those which eat the poisoned wolves - done correctly, that is. If the government biologists, who have the expertise & knowledge to do this corectly, are stopped from doing it, then it's left up to ranchers and hunters & the results are less than precise. Infortunately, the bonehead tree huggers are too stupid to realize this.
; The ranchers and hunters in the Bulkely Valley did a wholesale job on the wolves in the late 70's, early 80's and now there are many deer and moose, again, in the Bulkley Valley. For about 4 or 5 years, they were almost wiped out, along with several ranchers due to a wolf problem that the environmentalists prevented from being handled by the biologists. I'm certain many coyotes, bears, eagles and hawks, fishers & martins were also killed by the poisoning that transpired, but save the deer, moose and cattle, the people did.

 

Big cats have increased in numbers in Central Texas in recent years, which I am perfectly happy to see happening.

My grandpa grew up in Blanco county in the early 1900's and it was still pretty wild then. He said it was not unusual to see "black and gray panthers" (his words). We discussed it several times while he was alive and concluded the black ones may have been jaguars coming up from Mexico but the gray/brown ones were probably pumas. He told me once that he killed one when he was about ten with a sling. He owned two very large dogs that followed him everywhere and one day he spotted a lion in a tree. He broke its leg with a rock and the dogs did the rest.

About ten or so years ago, a 170 lb puma was killed northwest of Bandera in the Hill Country so they are still around and I heard what I thought was a cat one dark night in Uvalde two years ago (sounded like someone uttering a death scream - really chills your spine). I also saw one thru the binoculars that same year at about 600-700 yds crossing a pasture. I love seeing game and don't have a desire to kill everything that crosses my path but some ranchers probably think otherwise. At any rate, the numbers appear to be increasing.

 

[vanstg]

There's plenty of room for all God's creatures.
Right next to the mashed potatoes.

I fully support P.E.T.A. (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals)

 

[sneakon]

I tend to agree with Stumpkiller. There's plenty of tame and not enough wild. In my region, after the gold mining era wiped out the wildlife and most of the trees, it has taken the subsequent 100 or so years for things to approach recovery. Now we have allot of tame deer and even a few elk in the winter. Along with the deer come the mountain lions. There have been a few kids killed and other attacks in the past decade, but these occurred in mountain areas away from the urban/mountain interface. We do see mountain lions more and more frequently in urban areas and it is only a matter of time until there is an attack that catches peoples attention. I hope it is not me on one of my evening trail runs, but there are worse ways to go.