Cougar in the Backyard....

[Moosie]

OK, Not mine , But rumor has it These were taken behind the old State pen this morning!

Here kitty...kitty...kitty......

 

[Ovis]

now that is cool...you sure it isn't a pet? i had a friend once that had one of these as a house cat.

 

[Moosie]

Here's the History. I got these pictures from a Friend at Entranco Engineers this morning. I copied what was in the Email. Not sure if it's Fact or Fiction. It could be like that 12' Brown bear some Dummy took a Picture of and Sent it around the net

 

[smalls]

10', 12', who cares.

That thing still has teeth, is on someones porch, and is looking into the house the way sylvester looks in to tweety's cage. Fun time with the camera is over, grab the rifle.

smalls

 

[wilecoyote76]

I heard that these cats are roaming around the Boise bench but again, that's heresay.

 

[Handloader]

Yeah Ok, but is he a good mouser?

 

[Slydog]

There has been several sightings and the Fish & Game has killed 2 this year.. The last one was the 19th of march... 4 Days ago over by my daughters home..

sly

 

[wyomingtim]

Behind the State pen. Hmmmmmm, open the door and watch the show. kinda like the gladiator matches of old. Last one standing goes free.

 

[Slydog]

we need bigger cats for that,, they feed them inmates real good and you know they have a work out world and a dietision,,,,,,,,, All at our expence........ I say bigger cats!!!!

sly

 

[Elkhunter]

Still pretty cool pics though.

 

[Calif. Hunter]

I'm surprised that it stuck around for that many flash photos. It musta been a ham, wanting its picture taken.

 

[Moosie]

Here is the Part I'm not Buying...Right now it's like 78 durring the Day in Bosie. If you look at the Deck ther is NO snow on it.. If you look off the Deck it looks like a Chit load of snow. If that was a Recent picture, and a Local picture, It wouldn't look like that. the Snowflakes in the Pictures I'm guessing is a Glass dust reflection that is comon in Taking pictures through glass with or even without a Flash. The snow, if it is, Makes the picture a fake.... ???

Anybody else think It's snow or is it jsut me ?

 

[Delw]

Looks like snow on the ground. Whoever does there windows suck cause those are water spots. The spots are on the outside of the glass thats why the reflection making it look like snow.

Funny thing is I swear I saw these pictures before


Delw

 

[chambero]

My neighbor had a pet ML when I was a little kid. We used to own a convenience store/gas station and my neighbor stopped in to get gas one day. This was back in the 70s when gas rationing was going on. He had his cat in his truck with him. I went outside to pet the cat. A guy had pulled up to get gas and my mom had to go out and tell him he couldn't buy gas that day. He started cussing and ranting at my mom. He turned away from her real quick and found his self staring face to face with my neighbors cat who had his head out of the pickup window checking all the noise out. Even though I was about 8, I stil remember that the look on the guy's face and him squealing like a little pig out of fright.

OK, enough of my stupid stories. But seeing that cat, which looks like a pet to me, made me think of it.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

I saw these on the photography forum at Monster Muleys, they were posted on March 18th by "Samson". I think that is a real neat Photo, but I'm glad it's not smell-a-vision, cause I know that I would have soiled myself

 

[ELKCHSR]

Study: Mountain Lions Living Stealthily
Sun Apr 4, 2:16 PM ET

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer

CUYAMACA RANCHO STATE PARK, Calif. - New technology is giving scientists a window into the life of the mountain lion, a hunter so stealthy that the American Indians called it "the ghost of the Rockies."

The results are surprising researchers — the big cats are not as leery of urban settings as had been thought, and they don't necessarily develop an appetite for domestic livestock.

For the past three years, 20 lions in and around San Diego County's Cuyamaca Rancho State Park were outfitted with $5,000 Global Positioning System collars that allowed researchers to trace their nocturnal travels.

The collars' signals showed that mountain lions — also known as cougars or pumas — were crossing busy highways and just skirting clusters of homes.

"What surprised me the most is the degree of adaptability to what I consider to be high human activity in puma habitat," said Ken Logan, one of the researchers on the study and the author of "Desert Puma" based on a decade of research in New Mexico.

The continuing $200,000-a-year study by the University of California, Davis, may provide a better understanding of why a predator that normally avoids people sometimes comes dangerously close.

In January, a lion killed cyclist Mark Reynolds in an Orange County park and then seriously injured a second cyclist a short time later. A scenic canyon outside Tucson, Ariz., was closed for part of March because pumas were repeatedly seen in broad daylight and apparently without their normal fear of humans.

The UC Davis researchers want to understand whether mountain lion behavior changes as they get used to people. It's a question that's key to the cougar's survival in the fast-growing West. In California, even though a voter initiative outlawed trophy hunting of mountain lions, more than 700 have been killed over the past decade for threatening or harming people. From 1909 to 1963, more than 12,000 were hunted and killed in California.

"There might be ways with better understanding to know how to behave around lions to reduce the public safety incidents or lion attacks," said Walter Boyce, director of the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center and lead researcher on the project.

The study in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, 35 miles east of San Diego, found that during the day, the GPS-collared lions typically slept at least a football field's length away from the nearest trail and even farther from buildings.

After the sun set, however, the cats used the park's extensive trail system and crept closer to buildings.

One 3-year-old male, dubbed M-2, crossed Interstate 8 and two other highways a total of 48 times during a six-month period in 2002. He ultimately was killed by a vehicle.

The GPS plot of the travels of a 2-year-old female called F-8 showed a clear orbit around — although never through — private properties in the rural eastern San Diego County community of Harrison Park.

A separate study of three pumas in the Santa Monica National Recreation Area outside Los Angeles found one ventured into a graffiti-covered underpass to cross a highway.

The results of the UC Davis study are challenging some of the assumptions of state game wardens. Lt. Bob Turner, who has killed dozens of mountain lions over more than two decades with the California Department of Fish and Game, said he no longer believes that a cougar must be killed once it eats domestic animals.

F-8 was collared after she ate an alpaca, a small cousin of llamas, in a pen near the park. But after the alpaca breeder modified the fencing around her remaining livestock, the mountain lion returned to hunting deer.

"Close to 50 percent of the lions killed could be avoided if people could be responsible," Turner said. "Most people are plain stupid."

"We are not on the menu," said Doug Updike, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. "If a lion had any desire to catch and eat people, we would see literally hundreds of people dying every day."