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Posted
1 hour ago, BilletHead said:

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

Only because you live where the others are EXTREMELY RARE !  And I salute the ones who help keep it that way..

 

I've walked among hundreds of PEOPLE on a daily basis, for 60+ years.  And my biggest fear has always been that a SPIDER (or pubic lice)  might jump off of one of them. 😅

Hell I've even been cared for by two-legged critters.  I can't remember EVER being given a jar of honey, or a pot of goose fajitas by a grizzly bear or a cougar. ❤️ They definitely cause more problems than they solve, that's for sure. 

Posted
10 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

 


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.

 

Well the next time you get close enough, give them a HIGH FIVE from fishinwrench! 

Posted

I don't know about the rest of you,  but I've enjoyed the great outdoors all of my life MOSTLY because I know that I am the apex predator in the area.   

Having grizzly bears and mountain lions to consider.... would pretty much take the fun out of things. 

 

  

When I was a teenager there was a strip pit that we hiked into occasionally.   It was kinda close to a landfill and there was a pack of wild dogs (escapees from the city dog pound...so I was told) known to be near there.   Having to pack a 12ga. and a pocket full of buckshot rounds every time we fished that pit was a PIA.   One winter while rabbit hunting in the same area, all of a sudden THERE THEY WERE and HERE THEY CAME !      The lead dog was a big black German Shepherd looking bastard, and there was no mistaking what his intentions were.   I gave him a face full of #4 buckshot as soon as he got well within range......and LUCKILY the other 5-6 nasty looking dogs that were behind him got the message and I was able to get out of there while they stayed there sniffing that convulsing black mofo.   Even 2 follow up shots of #6 field loads didn't cause the others to run away.    One looked like a dalmatian mutt of sorts.....and THAT ONE did high-tail it out of there, but 4-5 others just stood their ground.

Even when well armed & prepared, having a rather large wild animal attacking you sure takes the fun out of things, and will definitely ruin your day. 

Posted

I back packed that area when I was young in the fall for 3 consecutive years, if they can live anywhere in Missouri and seldom be seen it's in that area. 

 

Posted
9 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

My brother in law has a place in Colorado.   The neighbors trapped one in a cage and just the video of it growling, hissing and snarling raised the hair on my neck.   It was huge relative to what I expected.   Seems these people’s mistake was not using the 3-S rule.   

I bet the 3-S happens more than you think, there has got to be a breeding population of loins in Mo. if they can hold up anywhere iron co. should be a good habitat. 

Posted

I like nature as it comes.  Being in country where there are big predators never really bothered me.  Even when we were fishing the outlet of a high lake in Wyoming and I came across a pile of grizzly scat.  Just kept fishing and didn't even die during the attack that never came.

Posted
13 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

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.  

I've had two experiences with large animals I'd categorize as negative (though I'll note nothing happened either time). Both involved moose. 

I once had the "between the cow and calf" experience while wading on a little brush-lined trout stream in the Bighorns. Definitely unpleasant. Thankfully it was a small and shallow stream, so I simply waded down the middle until I was pretty sure I was no longer in between them and scurried up onto the bank and back to camp. The brush made visibility tough, so I couldn't be sure, but obviously since I'm posting this, it ended up ok. 

The other was while hiking in Northern Colorado with a couple friends when I was a young pup, maybe 19 or 20. We'd planned our hike badly and it was nearing dark with a couple miles left. There was one place where you could safely ford a small but very fast moving river. And a cow moose was blocking it perfectly. In this case, she didn't do anything aggressive, she just picked from our standpoint an inconvenient place to stand, and would not move. After about 20 minutes of waiting and nothing happening we searched out an alternate crossing, which was very sketchy because it was then totally dark. 

I'll note the only thing that made that moose dangerous was that our poor planning made it so we could not practically wait the situation out. I learned a lot that day in terms of how much respect wild areas demand, particularly out west. Not so much because of the moose, but for many reasons that day could have ended much worse than it did for us. 

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