Hi from Montana!

[j.w]

I know they have spotted cougars in our area now and then but I've never seen one here. Course they are sneaky and hide and Colleen is right they will stalk you ever so quiet and then strike like a bolt of lightning. Once when we traveled up to Canada one shot out across the road in front of our car. He/she looked so beautiful and graceful running along and I would not call them a bad cat, just doing what comes natural to them but I do not want to become their natural dinner in any way!

 

[addy1]

ummmmmmmm yummy jw snack! says the cougar. They are beautiful animals

 

[Fishylove]

I'm on the very bottom of Indiana, a stones throw across the bridge from Kentuky. We,ve had Bobcats here for sometime, but it's just recently that a Mountain Lion was spotted here... Guess they are running out of food maybe huh? And moving...

 

[Fishylove]

Kinda scary really. We've never had to deal with large predators before. I mean, we have The Bobcats, you really don't hear too much about them. No wolves but we have Coyotes and they're pretty much scared of people. Hope I never encounter one

 

[callingcolleen1]

I have to deal with large packs of coyotes here every day when I take my large dogs to the river. I used to have three very large dogs, but sadly Sadie past away last Christmas. Even with three big dogs, my smallest is Poppy, she's only seventy five pounds and got attached by a bad pack of coyotes and if it was not for Sadie and Bear who saved her, she would be ripped to shreds. They bit her back legs and butt last summer and ripped her so bad it cost me 1000 dollars to have the vet put Poppy back together again. Now I carry undisclosed weapons to defend myself and my puppies too! And Yes JW the cougars are very nice kitty cats that have paws the size of my head and can weigh up to 200 pounds and could shed me into pieces before I even knew what hit me!! But its OK cause they now get to live in the city here too!! They have been spotted three blocks from my house, under the bridge, at every park in town, and now we also have moose on the loose too now in town!! The wild animals are taking over the city!!

On another note, a cougar was recently captured here in town..... but the tree huggers and animal lovers all complained and said that she should be released back into her "natural environment"..... and so they are going to release her this weekend!!!!... on Saturday night!!!!..... at "Ralphs Texas and bar saloon"! Ha Ha haaaa.

 

[CountryEscape]

Yep, wild animals will move into anywhere they can find food, especially if their normal food sources are scarce. My mom lived on a golf course in AZ before she moved, and the coyotes, would walk along the edge of yards, with their 4-6' tall fences, and if a small dog was in the yard, they would jump the fence and snatch it up and head back out! Her neighbor had a dog snatched away just like that, but he had only a 4' tall fence.
Coyotes around here are afraid of humans, stay away, but they will come and get aggressive with dogs if they are hungry enough. Former FIL had a blue tick coonhound tied to a tree, they came to get his food, he fought back, and almost lost the battle! FIL heard the commotion, and came out shooting, coyotes were gone in a flash, never came back. Wild dogs will pack up and do the same thing, too.
Saw my first bobcat kittens last month in NW Illinois, and they were the cutest buggers! About the size of a full grown cat, so close to full grown for a bobcat, but adorable. I'm glad they aren't close to where I live. They would prey on small dogs, cats, plus all the other small animals and rodents.

 

[j.w]

I sure wouldn't want any cougars living in the city. When we get them around here...........very seldom............they trap them and move them out to the more desolate areas in the wild, same w/ bears and only coyotes that become aggressive w/ humans are trapped and killed. The coyotes do grab smaller pets but they don't bother trapping those. Prolly a good idea to carry a weapon to protect yourself and your pets if something were to try and attack you. I just don't like it when sometimes they kill the animals just cuz some believe the animals have no right to live on the earth at all cuz they are big, have teeth and might.............I say might eat you up. Got to protect ourselves but to kill them just cuz they cross our path is another story.

 

[callingcolleen1]

I heard on the news yesterday there was another cougar attack, tried to get a woman who was sitting on her couch in her house, in Trail BC, Canada, they said the cougar was starved. Maybe there is too many cougars roaming around, we never used to have them here, and we never used to have coyotes like we do now. I think maybe because not many people go hunting anymore, there numbers are now very large and maybe they should be culled to prevent them from starving to death.

 

[j.w]

Do you have a lot of deer Colleen cuz if so I would sure think that the cougar would be grabbing them up. We have tons of deer now. Think cuz our last winter wasn't very cold they are abundant and w/ all the rain we had in Spring and early Summer there was plenty of vegetation for them to eat. I see quite a few more than usual laying dead on the roads from getting hit by cars.

 

[Fishylove]

Oh we have lots of hunters here. Just that those animals are protected now and are moving into more populated areas to compete for food.

 

[mtpond]

Even tho we have a lot of people who hunt here we still seem to have a lot of deer. We have a set of twins that were born this year and another doe that had one fawn and I see all of them daily. Our lawn below the house we hardly have to mow. It is grass and clover and the deer keep it short. I have come home from work and there will be deer laying in my yard.
Ever since we moved up here we have heard other people say they have seen mountain lions. The neighbor down below us they figured a mountain was what attacked their colt, got it around it's neck. Didn't kill it but they had to feed the colt with a tube shoved down it throat.
We also have coyotes that we see run across our property but they haven't really bothered us any. And now that they have introduced wolves in our area I'm sad about that cause those things just kill to kill.
We have four springs on our property and I'm sure we get a lot of wild life the comes to drink that we don't see. Hubby wants to put a camera out and see what animals come and drink at our spring that is closes to our house, that is about 36 ft from our house.

 

[CountryEscape]

Water will bring the wildlife, that's true! And, the good thing about wild animals is that they usually kill to eat, but foxes, who get into chicken coops, I know will slaughter the whole shebang, and only eat one or two. The excitement of the chickens causes them to kill. I didn't know that wolves do that sometimes, too. It's awful when animals kill and leave the dead for the vultures. In the wild, usually they would drag them off, or come back the following day to feast again.
That's awful about your neighbor's colt! Yep, sounds like a cat attack to me, too! I would be very leery to have any baby animals in unprotected pastures!

 

[taherrmann4]

I know they have spotted cougars in our area now and then but I've never seen one here. Course they are sneaky and hide and Colleen is right they will stalk you ever so quiet and then strike like a bolt of lightning.

The only cougars I have seen are the two legged kind. :wub:

 

[callingcolleen1]

We do have lots of deer, but there is so many cougars these days, like I said, never used to even have cougars here in Medicine Hat before! In Canada it is getting hard to own a gun, so not many people have one or hunt much. Two years ago the winter was brutal, the snow was very very deep and hard packed on the praires, and lots of antelope died that year, before that there was lots of antelope everywhere, now I hardly see any at all! We used to have lots of porkypines too but the cougars eat most of them at the river, they roll them over and eat the soft underbelly!

 

[CountryEscape]

T'Mann you sound very experienced with the two-legged cougars ..... Just how old are you anyhow? LOL Lots of 2 legged cougars in my area, too. I'm not one, but one of my friends is a self-proclaimed cougar! LOL It's funny watching her "hunt", or maybe funnier watching the young guys hunt for her! Geesh .... all in a evening out on the town. Going to go out for a relaxing glass or two of wine with a friend tomorrow, and neither of us are going out with the idea of hunting down men. Much more relaxing to just sit and relax and listen to good music. :razz: