Mountain Lion shot during deer season

[fishinwrench]

54 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

Absolutely no reason to kill that animal. Just another stupid redneck

It would be considered a problematic critter in any woodlot that I, or my kids, personally spend time in. 

I don't like spiders or mice in my house, or poisonous snakes in my yard either.  

IMO the "stupid" person is the one with a cougar attached to the back of his neck !   😅

[Quillback]

Hard to tell by the pics, but looks pretty scrawny, might be a youngster that got kicked out of another cats territory.   

Washington had a population of a couple thousand, and with all the time I spent in the outdoors hunting and fishing, two times I caught a glimpse of what I thought might have been a lion.  

30 years ago you could hunt them with dogs in Washington, PETA types ended that, they can still be hunted, but pretty tough to get one without dogs.  A handful get shot every year by deer and elk hunters.  

So now that they aren't hunted enough to keep the population under control, they can be a problem.  

[BilletHead]

40 minutes ago, tjm said:

Saw several lions back in the '60s in Id., when horse backing BLM and Forest lands, a couple fairly closeup.    Some Dad's friends hunted them with hounds,  and I don't think they ever pose much of a threat to humans. If one was threatening a human, it would be in an ambush situation and the cat would be on the human before it was seen. They can and do kill livestock, but it would be rare for that to happen where the owner would witness it. I have seen a few lions in Mo. and have heard believable stories of others. My grandfathers generation called them "panthers".

                     They like to attack in California. Guess the taste better than humans in Idaho  Manage to kill a few people too. 

Verified Mountain Lion-Human Attacks

 

[Quillback]

8 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

                     They like to attack in California. Guess the taste better than humans in Idaho  Manage to kill a few people too. 

Verified Mountain Lion-Human Attacks

 

I remember this attack - I used to fish the Kalama when I lived there, so it caught my attention at the time.  

WDFW searching for cougar, alerting residents after Kalama River angler accosted | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

[tjm]

how many of those cali victims were in a tree stand? How many were even aware of the lion in advance? The  Kalama incident is typical of cougar. Unseen until attack is complete. I probably should have said that a seen cat doesn't seem too dangerous to my mind, the unseen cats are of course something to fear. They can gut a horse or elk with one slash of the kind foot.

[fishinwrench]

In a society where folks are obsessed with personal protection, and where even a verbal threat is considered "terrorism".... it amazes me that eradicating a known predator of humans is frowned upon, and even considered a crime. 

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, tjm said:

how many of those cali victims were in a tree stand? How many were even aware of the lion in advance? The  Kalama incident is typical of cougar. Unseen until attack is complete. I probably should have said that a seen cat doesn't seem too dangerous to my mind, the unseen cats are of course something to fear. They can gut a horse or elk with one slash of the kind foot.

              I was just trying to say they are dangerous. That state has grown in population and encroached on the lions living space and the lions have adapted as have the bear, coyote and bobcat. 

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, fishinwrench said:

In a society where folks are obsessed with personal protection, and where even a verbal threat is considered "terrorism".... it amazes me that eradicating a known predator of humans is frowned upon, and even considered a crime. 

                    I am way more afraid of two legged predators (people) anywhere I go. 

[Hawg]

I lived in the northwest for a long time.

The first one I ever saw was creeping through the open field adjoining my property to our neighbors parcel.

My brain really couldn't recognize what it was because I was used to seeing all these little black tail deer and it looked about the same size and color in the tall grass. Took me a few seconds of staring at it to realize it wasn't a wounded deer. It was a giant cat.

My neighbor was well-known to shoot about 5-10 coyotes a year to try to keep it better for the deer and turkey to grow.

I told him about it and the next day he rode his ATV over and asked for my help to come track a mountain lion.

He and his wife and thier two month old baby were out at the cabin. His dog started barking at the door and he opened it up and he said the lion was about 30 yards out from his door, staring directly at him.

He had a new Bowtech set-up that he had just sighted in for dear/bear season.

He said the lion started coming at them either because the dog barking or the baby crying and he buried a broadhead directly in the middle of its chest from inside the front door.

We looked for that thing for two days and never found it.

Had lots of black bear problems up there too, but those problems were due to the bears breaking into things and destroying things. Not messing with people, they would always run away.

 

 

 

 

 

[Al Agnew]

Just about every single mountain lion attack in recent years has been in places with a long thriving lion population where human development is encroaching upon them, disrupting their food supplies and movements.  In Missouri it would be just the opposite.  I spend a whole lot of time in places where there are definitely mountain lions, and have never once worried about being attacked.  I'm pretty sure I've had lions following me and watching me; I've hiked into an area, and coming back out found lion tracks superimposed on my own tracks.  In those places, there are also wolves, black bears, and grizzlies.  On a scale of relative danger, I'd put wolves last, lions next to last, and black bears a very distant second to grizzlies.  I've seen all in the wild and up fairly close, but the most danger I was ever in was with a cow moose when I accidentally got between her and her calf.

I think I know a member or two of the family that shot this one.  I won't comment on them.  But if he shot it between the shoulders and there's a big hole in its chest, it was still facing away from them.