Awesome photo of 8 cougars on game trail

[pokerfan]

They don't exactly hunt in packs, don't travel in herds and aren't typically thought of as communal beings.

The image of the mountain lion as a stealthy, solitary beast is woven into the fabric of the American West.

And yet there they were on a game trail in Eastern Washington — eight creatures famous for being loners, all huddled together as if attending some big-cat block party.



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014261221_cougars18m.html

[FSogol]

1. Oh, THAT kind of Coguar.

:blush:

[pokerfan]

6. yeah, I thought that title might be a little ambiguous

[Blue Owl]

11. rawr

n/t

[Initech]

20. Must..... Resist.... Making.... Jokes...,

[n2doc]

2. Not at all what I was thinking of when I read your title n/t

[Taverner]

They must have stumbled on a bottle of single-malt

[SidDithers]

3. Ties in with DemoTex' thread from yesterday...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x443507

Sid

[DemoTex]

10. !

:scared:

[SidDithers]

12. Yeah. Don't surprise 8 of 'em, Mac...

:hi:

Sid

[pokerfan]

14. scared is right

or at least wary. A few years ago a buddy of mine had to defend himself on a hunt when a cat got after one of his horses. Normally, they are more scared/wary of us but any wild animal can be unpredictable.

(FWIW, I was one of the one's recommending a shotgun in your look-out duty thread from yesterday.)

[pokerfan]

4. another pic

[dkofos]

5. Wow, highly unusual.

Glad I wasn't walking down that trail.

[MineralMan]

7. Somewhere in there is a female cougar in heat.

[PufPuf23]

17. I'd guess female cougar in heat rather than hunting too.

Here is data on human cougar attacks:

http://tchester.org/sgm/lists/lion_attacks.html

http://www.cougarinfo.org/attacks3.htm

RE DemoTex: I recommend a pump 12 gauge shotgun with buckshot and shoot to miss to preemptively frighten if there is a cougar stalking your lookout or regular hiking area. In the case of an attack on you or dog, the big cat will likely be a surprise. Cougars make a distinctive scrape to mark their territory and also the poop is easy to identify with experience.

My grandfather and Dad were hounds men and grandparents had a Klamath River hunting/fishing resort from 1921 to 1958. My grandfather hunted "panthers" for bounties. I have some cool pictures from 20s and 30s of cougars, bear, steelhead, salmon, sturgeon, deer, duck, elk, etc. from my grandparents. I do not like to kill nor play with guns and haven't hunted since 1970.

Several years back I had a beagle and lab that treed a cougar in my "yard" about 400 yards from my house and the same two dogs sent a young black bear up a tree within 100 feet of house. I had to chain up the dogs because their barking was such a nuisance and so the wildlife would get out of the trees. I would rank personal injuries, auto accidents, other people, snakes, yellow jackets/hornets/bees, lightning, and black bears with cubs as greater risks in western forests than cougars; add in brown bear in Alaska and grizzly bear range in lower 48 that are more aggressive and territorial than cats.

One should check with the US Forest Service (assume your employer) as they have rules about guns in facilities and on the job for employees. I was USFS from 1969 to 1986 and used a shotgun to obtain cone and forest insect samples for research. As a government contractor, had crews several seasons in on the Tongass NF in 1990s doing ecological surveys. We had to have a bear safety plan as part of the contract. In brown bear areas, we had to have an armed person to accompany crews and, in black bear areas, I provided shot guns and pepper spray. We joked that the pepper spray was to stop the slowest member of the crew while the rest got away. Once in eastern OR a timber cruiser had a cat grab his dog 5 feet behind him by surprise and he hit the animal in the snout with his tatum without even thinking and the cougar dropped the small dog and ran.

[TheWraith]

8. This is highly unusual.

Normally I would attribute a group of cougars to being a family--the young will stay with the mother until they're good sized before striking out on their own. But eight is far more than any normal family pack of cougars would contain.

[jeepnstein]

9. Collective bargaining...

some times a cat's gotta do what a cat's gotta do.

[Whisp]

13. they're PUMAs celebrating another lie about Obama.

[DCKit]

15. K for the post, R for the responses. Y'all are just sick. nt

[Cleita]

16. Probably a mom and some of her grown cubs that

haven't struck out on their own yet.

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. hope they are left alone

[jody]

19. No big deal, I saw a pack of ten in Santa Monica last week end. n/t

[bigwillq]

21. Cool pic.

:bounce: