The AP does a story tonight on what I've been saying all along - we're not mountain lion's friends. We're potential food. (so it's them or us).

Yahoo! News via the Associated press has an interesting story tonight on why we should be more vigilant about thinning out those numbers, and not just because we want a cool rug by the fireplace:

Carrie Ann Warner has repeatedly called authorities about the stalker that has peered into her son's bedroom window at night, killed the family cat and even chased the family into their home in the wooded hills west of Denver.

The mountain lion has eluded wildlife officers perched on the porch with shotguns, traps baited with roadkill and even a motion-detection camera fastened to a pine tree.

Six-year-old Schylure told his parents the lion stared into his room "like it was mad at me."

"We're living in this vale of fear," said Carrie Ann Warner, whose family has built a steel enclosure around their back porch. "I've reached my wit's end. I don't know what to do."

Reports of mountain lions roaming neighborhoods and devouring family pets have cropped up from suburban Denver to Fort Collins, one of the most heavily populated stretches in the Rockies. In April, a lion attacked and broke the jaw of a 7-year-old boy on a trail in Boulder before it was chased off.

and..

But some Colorado residents say they're living in fear of the mountain lions, which can weigh as much as 180 pounds.

Tracey English no longer allows her teenage son to jog by himself in a nearby open space and her dog stays inside unless it's being walked on a leash. Last month a mountain lion was captured in a trap in her backyard.

"I don't feel like we're living in a natural wilderness. Nothing about it is natural," English said. "I believe the lions need to be managed."

Jesus. Read it here as a scary bedtime story for your kids.

When are people going to realize that we're part of the food chain, and unless we start using the intellect that has moved us to the top, these seldom-managed carnivorous predators are going to remind us in a horrific way? Time to thin their numbers, considerably.

Before it's too late.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I'd prefer to start thinning the theocrat Republican herd. They are a much greater threat than the mtn lions.
Anonymous said…
The lions are coming the lions are coming...this could be the end. Hurry PP, spread the word. And while you are at it, lets get spiders, snakes and mosquitos each of which kill more people each year than mountain lions. Maybe we should refer mountain lion extermination on the next ballot.

Jeez. Get off it.
Anonymous said…
...and, go to bed at a decent hour. I knew your mother, heck of a lady, and she'd of said the same thing.
Anonymous said…
"Still, mountain lion fatalities are rare — only 17 nationwide since 1890. The last fatal attack is believed to be in January 2004, when a lion killed a bicyclist in an Orange County, Calif., park."

Fatalities in the shower are more common than mountain lion attacks.

Not saying people shouldn't look out for their families, but, saying "it's them or us" appears to be an exaggeration.
Anonymous said…
anon 7:53 – “I'd prefer to start thinning the theocrat Republican herd. They are a much greater threat than the mtn lions.”
I’ll bet you’d like to see us thinned out. We really are a greater threat to flaming liberals than mountain lions will ever be.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Anonymous said…
PP:

Mountain lion report for Harrisburg, SD. I've kept them all at bay. So, I'm still top of the food chain, at least in this little corner of the Garden Spot of South Dakota. But if they raise their hairy little heads, their toast in Harrisburg on my watch.

Todd Epp
Mountain Lion Editor and Exterminator
S.D. Watch
Anonymous said…
Ok, "they're" not "their." Not enough coffee yet this morning. Mountain lions be ware in Lincoln County, SD!
Anonymous said…
Or "beware". Gees. Can't. Type. This. Morning. Channelling. Sibby.
PP said…
You guys are sooo easy to get going. And the mountain lion topic is safer to pimp people on than religion.
Anonymous said…
Mountain lions are definately getting to be a problem in South Dakota and it is only a matter of time until someone becomes cat chow. Cougars getting so thick that several have been killed in urban areas. They have no fear of man because they no reason to fear what they consider to be prey.

Here is a link and online discussion of the lions roaming our area, including pictures of one ran over within 10 miles of our house:
http://www.ranchers.net/forum/about8476
Anonymous said…
Todd - hope you can shoot better than you can type! But anyway, I agree with you. Any lion I see around here will be toast too, just like the one a rancher north of us in ND shot when it attacked his dog on his back porch. That's WAY too close for comfort.
Anonymous said…
Liberty Belle,

Mtn. lions don't see humans as prey. That's nuts. If they did w.the confirmed kill numbers they'd extinct themselves. They eat a deer a week and various household cats which I consider a service to society.
Anonymous said…
Mr. Aust stated that only 17 fatal attacks by mountain lions have occurred since 1890. That is true, but look at when those deaths took place.

One death in 1890 and another in 1909. For the next 77 years there were no fatal mountain lion attacks on humans. Since 1986 fifteen people have been killed.

Between 1991 and 2003 there were 73 actual attacks on humans which resulted in 10 deaths. Why the increase? The m lion population in 1971 in just California alone was estimated at 600, today it is thought to be about 6000.

I agree with PP that the population of the m lions need to be reduced to smaller numbers and held at those levels.
Anonymous said…
Anon 12:18: “Mtn. lions don't see humans as prey. That's nuts. If they did w.the confirmed kill numbers they'd extinct themselves. They eat a deer a week and various household cats which I consider a service to society.”

Mountain lions most assuredly DO consider humans to be prey. Check out this link:
http://www.southeasternoutdoors.com/wildlife/mammals/mountain-lion-attacks-fatal.html

You will see that there have been at least 20 confirmed cases of people who were killed by cougars since 1988 in the US and Canada and with the increase in the large predatory felines, that number is sure to grow.

Have to agree with you about the housecats though…
Anonymous said…
Liberty Belle,

I hunt every year in the hills and at least 7-10 days in Colorado or Wyoming. Been doing so for over 10 years. I usually am out by myself all day, even, occasionally, laying down for a nap in the afternoon. Somehow, I continue to survive. I've seen tracks, never seen a cat. They are there, but they won't bother an adult unless their prey triggers are tripped.

Part of what makes the outdoors great is the things God has put in place. If you don't like cats, move out of the hills. If one is passing through on the prarie, fine. Don't like that? Move to Chicago.

I talked to an old hunter in his 70s years ago in Wyoming and he'd spent 30+ Septembers in the same hunting unit, never seeing a cat. Great respect for them though. This old guy couldn't fight off a house cat but I bet he'd fight PP tooth and nail if you tried to do anything to that which nature intended to be put in his place. As would I.

Maybe if we elect Jeb Bush we can just slash all the timber and just drill for oil everywhere. That will show them cats!
Anonymous said…
Anon 4:51, I’m just tickled that you haven’t tripped any mountain lion’s prey trigger yet, but don’t expect me to get used to having these dangerous predators loose in the same territory as my kids, grandkids and livestock. Contrary to popular “greenie” opinion, the cats were not here when my great grandparents settled in this area, although we did have plenty of wolves, coyotes and an occasional bear, both black and grizzly. I have no intention of leaving the ranch my ancestors founded because of a lot of imported predators that don’t belong here.

Correction - those cougar kills I posted are from 1890, not 1988.

“Maybe if we elect Jeb Bush we can just slash all the timber and just drill for oil everywhere. That will show them cats!”

This quote from you tells us all we need to know about where you are coming from. Tell me, have you started walking to work and building your houses from recycled trash?

And what are you thinking – shooting those poor defenseless game animals? For shame!!
Anonymous said…
If it wasn't for hunters there wouldn't be any deer, elk, turkey, etc. left in this county. As to what was hear when some ranchers forebearers came on the scene, we'd already taken a number of species out of the picture. God bless Teddy R.

Signed,

Republican hunter who hates to see "our" lands raped by industrialists (and farmers/rancher?) lining there pockets at my expense.
Anonymous said…
Anon 5:35, let me see if I have this straight – I, as a rancher, am raping the land by making my living on land that I own and pay taxes on and the expense is YOURS???

This is the most idiotic statement I’ve heard from any greenie-whacko for a long, long time!!

If it weren’t for the landowners who raise the public’s game animals at their own expense, you wouldn’t have any game to hunt. Nuts like you are easy to say no to when you come knocking on my door wanting to hunt my private land because you consider it your right.

A fine Republican you are. Is your name Tony Dean?
Anonymous said…
"If it weren’t for the landowners who raise the public’s game animals at their own expense, you wouldn’t have any game to hunt."

Yes, we should give you government guaranteed crop production, CRP payments, drought relief (oops, sorry, Thune is working on that), take breaks along w/an accounting system that guarantees you won't pay income tax, subsidies, deficiency payments, goverment easements paying you for doing what you already do, trees for 10c on the dollar, tariff protection, government purchasing of product that the market would bear, etc...etc...etc...the poor farmer/rancher. We should be buying out shi* from Brazil like McDonalds. They produce it cheaper. That's a Republican ideal!

Belle...are you Jim Lintz?
Anonymous said…
tax breaks, my bad.
Anonymous said…
Anon 8:16: Wow! You really have a load of misinformation backed away in that tiny brain of yours, don’t you? No wonder there is no room for cognitive thought.

What do these crazy statements have to do with me having to raise the public’s game animals at my expense?

I would love it if the Dept. of Agriculture closed down tomorrow, the government got entirely out of my business, and you raised your game animals on your own lawn, not on the grass my cattle need to survive.

Republican ideal? What have you been smoking? You ARE Tony Dean, aren’t you!!! Are the Vote for Daschle signs still on your lawn?

And no, I’m not Jim Lintz, but I’m very proud to call him a friend.
Anonymous said…
Belle-

You appear to be far to articulate to be a friend of Jim Lintz. Are you just making that up?
Anonymous said…
Anon 8:55 - It's too articulate, not to articulate. And no, I didn't just make that up. I'm also a friend of Napoli, Klaudt, Bogue, Rhoden, and Apa, all legislators we can trust to do exactly what they tell us they are going to do before the elections.

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