Cougars

[Vegan Scot]

I know full well what a minority I am here on X Marks. Perhaps all the more reason for me to voice my opinion from within the fray. Two quotes immediately sprang to mind while reading through this thread, both from the gadfly and defender of the American West, Edward Abbey.

"The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow ****, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West."

"We need coyotes more than we need, let us say, more people, of whom we already have an extravagant surplus, or more domesticated dogs, which in all fairness could and should be ground up into hamburger and used as emergency coyote food, to raise their spirits and perhaps improve the tenor of their predawn howling."

Perhaps the same could and should be said of cougars...

[Alan H]

I know full well what a minority I am here on X Marks. Perhaps all the more reason for me to voice my opinion from within the fray. Two quotes immediately sprang to mind while reading through this thread, both from the gadfly and defender of the American West, Edward Abbey.

"The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow ****, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West."

"We need coyotes more than we need, let us say, more people, of whom we already have an extravagant surplus, or more domesticated dogs, which in all fairness could and should be ground up into hamburger and used as emergency coyote food, to raise their spirits and perhaps improve the tenor of their predawn howling."

Perhaps the same could and should be said of cougars...

You'n me, brother. We're on the same page.

I vote for more cougars, coyotes, ants, butterflies, gophers, trees, bunch grass, grasshoppers, lizards, hawks and bats...

and a LOT fewer humans.

[Alan H]

I figure that if a coyote thinks I might make a meal, then I'm absolutely entitled to beat the crap out of the animal and convince it otherwise. I, too, am an animal and will act like one to preserve my life.

That doesn't change my opinion that there are WAY too many people. Too many people results in a huge destruction of biological diversity, and I am one of those wierdos that doesn't think that just because we're human, we're any more important or "worthy" than any other species that lives on the planet.

[wildrover]

I figure that if a coyote thinks I might make a meal, then I'm absolutely entitled to beat the crap out of the animal and convince it otherwise. I, too, am an animal and will act like one to preserve my life.

Three words:

FULL-MASK-SPORRAN

[jeremy j starche]

FULL-MASK-SPORRAN

I've already quit wearing a full-face sporran down to the local park when I practice...

... But those who were that last day could tell a story about a piper playing and a small terrier swinging between his legs, teeth firmly sank into my raccoon face ....

I can't imagine any sort of a wild cat trying to do the same ....

[Vegan Scot]

Three words:

FULL-MASK-SPORRAN

Can't remember who it was a while back who was talking about making a dress sporran with human hair but I say, why stop there? Full (human) mask sporran.

I keed, I keed...

[weepeskythistle]

Can't remember who it was a while back who was talking about making a dress sporran with human hair but I say, why stop there? Full (human) mask sporran.

I keed, I keed...

I don't usually care about most discussions but I had to tell you that I too am on your page with this. Humans have ruined the earth.

Anywhoo, how about the fools who set loose non-native species like boas and pythons who are now able to make it further and further north because of warmer temps? Yikes!

[auld argonian]

That doesn't change my opinion that there are WAY too many people. .

Yeah...but the hard part here is finding any that want to volunteer to leave...anybody?

Remember out ol' buddy Thomas Robert Malthus? The one who suggested that there will always be disasters to help "thin the herd" now and again? We've gotten too good at getting through disasters so there's a lot more of us covering a lot more area.

But Bro. Canuck's last post reminds me of the Thylacoleo sightings in the Land Down Under. The marsupial tiger supposedly went extinct back in the 1930's but people are still spotting them out there in the outback. Mike Smith, a local songwriter, did a great tune a while back titled "There's A Panther In Michigan" about sightings back in the last decades of the 20th Century.

(M. Smith)
Chorus: There's a panther in Michigan. Don't that make your Halloween?
There's a panther in Michigan, although he is seldom seen
And he's following the water in the ways of the Indian,
And he's crossing the border to Indiana.
There's an awful lot of cover down along the Raisin river.
We would set up on the one side, he'd show up on the other.
I know people used to wonder why we couldn't catch the panther,
There's an awful lot of cover down along the Raisin river.
When a farmer in Manchester called, I was there in minutes,
Following the trail of feathers
Through the high grass when he screamed.
Thirty-four years in law enforcement, I've never been so scared.
I could see where he was going by the way the grass was moving.
Chorus:
Now, people who know panthers say that they are lazy hunters,
And they will take a prey that's wounded over one that's healthy,
And he might take a child, playing in a sand-box,
For some kind of wounded critter down along the Raisin river.
Test drivers saw the panther at the Chrysler proving grounds.
It was during hunting season. He was out there on the track,
And he knew if he went in there, he'd be safe from hunters.
He's an uncanny animal.
Chorus:


Best

AA

[Lallans]

Whoever wrote that is the Gilbert and Sullivan of cougar lore!

[BoldHighlander]

A couple years ago a good friend of mine told me about when he & his brother-in-law and a couple buddies went hunting.

They were sitting around a campfire, bs'ing, when they noticed a cougar sitting, watching them, just on the edge of the shadows (perhaps 20 feet away). Pretty soon they noticed one, then a second, then a third cougar (all younger), doing as mama....basically surrounding them. These cats would then back into the shadows, then reappear in a different spot.

My buddy said they felt like they were been "hunted". He also said their guns were out of reach, and they felt if they turned their backs or made a move, that they'd be in deep trouble.

Finally the cats moved off into the shadows, and my friend & his buddies quickly broke camp, loaded the truck (while one stood guard), and got the heck out of dodge! He & his crew never did figure out what their game was, but they didn't want to stick around to find out. He said he never was so scared before, even when he was out hunting the year before, and discovered a bear had been tracking him!