Bah. We get Black Bear and Fox. Coyote once in a while. Deer a lot, but they go downhill in the winter. Moose are our friends, they mow our ‘lawn’. Moose are good friends. Just don’t get too friendly with them, they will stomp your butt.
Walking a dog today, I saw Cougar tracks. Not more than 100 yards from the house. Cougars/Mountain lions are not to be messed with. I know I’m in their territory, their home, but gonna have to keep an extra eye out for them.
Gonna load a rifle to have close at hand in case I need to scare one off. Better to have and not need, then to need and not have.
Oooh! Scary. Don’t leave your pets outside. At the moment I’m fighting coyotes. They are trying to eat my chickens and the hunting dog pen is a constant source of attraction because of the automatic feeders. I don’t like to shoot anything living. I have. And I will again if they show up with murder on their minds.
Dogs have a doggie door into the house, and a 6’ fenced yard (not that that would stop a cougar). Dogs as in plural. Two 60lb Boarder Collie mixes. Cougars are opportunistic hunters, and doubt they would give our dogs a problem.
But if it is sick, hungry, or whatever, you just don’t know. A runner was just attacked somewhere near Fort Collins. He survived. He strangled it. How he will ever sleep again I don’t know.
Loaded up my Marlin 336er .356 win. Just to have handy. Hopefully won’t ever need it, or will use it just to make a GREAT deal of noise. It’s a bit of a cannon.
Not sure if this would work for you Beck, but crushed moth balls dissuade bears pretty well.
Cougars are dangerous to small livestock (anything deer size and under) and pets. They are normally not at all dangerous to human beings, the occasional (indeed recent) sensational story notwithstanding. They are very shy. I lived next to one (there will only be one, they are solitary and defend a territory) for forty years and saw him once, very briefly. He attacked my goats three times, was successful once. I saw his eyes in the dark once, as he was running away, and turned to look at me from a safe distance. But I know he passed through on a weekly if not daily basis.
You won’t need a rifle, just your presence, to scare him off.
I’ve had two relatively close encounters over the years. Once on my mountain bike above JPL in Pasadena, going up Brown Mountain road, and once on Breckenridge road southeast of Bakersfield while riding my motorcycle. Scared the shit out of me. I know what a bad ass my house cat is, and she’s 12 pounds. I can’t imagine how she’d be if she was 150 pounds and pissed at me. Fortunately, on both occasions, the cougars seemed more shy and annoyed than pissed off, but still…:eek:
I’ve heard you should wear a hat with a picture of eyes printed on the back, or buttons sewn on to resemble eyes. Pumas like to attack from behind and supposedly they won’t pounce if they think their prey is looking at them.
There’s rumors of one in my neck of the woods. I’ve never seen or heard it. The story is, it caterwauls at night. I’ve heard very strange sounds at night here but nothing that seems cat-ish. The way my pet cats own me I’m sure one would definitely eat me, without compunction.
I’ve stumbled into one on a dry river bed. Probably as surprised as us, it took off. But the walk back was hair-raising.
OP is pretty blase about moose. IMHO much more terrifying, the only thing worse about mountain lion is that one is probably watching you and you’ll never know.
You are thinking of man-eating tigers in the Sundarbans. Apparently it worked like a charm-- for about six months, until the tigers figured it out. They’re not that stupid.
As for pumas, they are not panthers and would not normally prey upon humans. (They seem pretty sweet-tempered if you can believe any of those YouTube videos featuring domesticated ones.) I did actually see one while hiking once; it sat and stared at me while I gave it a wide berth. Worrying about puma attacks is irrational; you should save your nightmares for much more deadly dangers like lightning or being stung to death by bees.
Cougars are the scariest animal in these mountains IMHO. A sidearm would be a good choice if you don’t feel comfortable with your strangle-one-with-your-bare-hands skills. Not sure what your firearm-related experience is, but if you do choose to carry one, please take the time to become acquainted with its safe operation and proper care (and store it securely when you’re not using it).
P.S. Now I have no way to independently verify this, but a friend told me about the time he was happily hiking along, squeezed past a bush and oops, there’s a tiger. Now that’s when you might lose your carefully cultivated cool, though he said he just froze, not daring to move a muscle. Luckily, it was young (and nb this wasn’t the man-eater park) and after what seemed like an eternity it ran off.
