[labgrade]

Next door neighbor hollared up this afternoon saying there's a dead deer out back his house.

We're fairly rural & have deer all over - cats too & a few bears.

Anyhoo, Looked to be a yearling muley doe. One hind haunch was eaten, no evidence of blood on the (tall) grass. No really discernable drag marks, but there's several regulary used "trails" in this same tall grass - hard to tell. The ground cover does not lend itself to anything tracking-wise.

I felt the throat area & appears that there were at least 2X punctures on one side of the widepipe.

No covering of the critter, but as it was only about 15 yards off the neighbors' back deck, could easily have been put off by their tethered boxer-dog.

Comments?

Cat or bear? or?

[KMKeller]

Cat, bears usually don't kill by crushing the windpipe. That's a feline trait.

[Keith]

Don't know much about cats, but a bear would have dragged the carcass into a thicket and then covered it up with leaves and sticks, etc. They wouldn't just leave it lying there unless they were disturbed.

You should be able to find tracks around there somewhere, but be careful because I suspect either critter might be lying up close by to protect its cache!

Keith

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, it's quite common for a cat to lie up in some thicket within a few hundred yards or closer, wherever the nearest cover is available...It's best, if you plan to haul the carcass off for disposal, to have somebody covering your six.

Art

[4v50 Gary]

Yep, keep the dog nearby as your Early Warning System.

[Dan Morris]

I'd go with the cat. Do not leash the dog, could wind up as a munchie!
Dan

[labgrade]

I know little about either cats or bears, but from the neck punctures, would bet on cat.

Called the DOW who was closed, so did the County Mounty bit - just to get it on record. Nice enough fellow came over (knew nothing about hunting/critters) but did have a real number (part of the plan) & contacted DOW. They said to just haul it off over to this one area where a momma bear was feeding. We did.

Best to get it away from our area (neighbor's have 3 kids) & into a more remote spot.

& yup. Both dogs were free-ranging.

The deer could've been nailed any place/time &dragged to the area, but I'd bet it was disturbed by the neighbor letting his dog out early AM. The "no covering" of the carcass - well, disturbed, they don't have that chance, no?

Tracks here are very iffy. The "ground cover" is essentially tall grass over sandstone base. There are some spots of sand here & there, but really very difficult to tell mostly.

Really no telling.

Called a couple few nearby who have livestock (llamas, etc.) & gave the news ..... 'bout all one can do except keep an eye peeled.

[Dr.Rob]

Have a girlfriend up in deer creek canyon lose a goat and a duck to lions. Yesterday she found bear scat in her garden. Ever the intrepid mountain girl, she complained that the bear had trampled her Wormwood. bears don't bother her much.

Lion was spotted two weeks ago in neighbor's driveway. That had her a little worried as the night her goat was killed, the lion attacked it in a pen alongside the house and dragged it across the yard to eat it near the driveway. The kill was made sliently, and neither of her dogs at the time (A neufandland and a husky) made any noise at all. Said mountain gal thinks the dogs were too scared to bark.

Keep the pets and little ones inside at night. A 100 pound cat can kill a full grown moose. Your dogs may or may not act as a warning system.

[labgrade]

"Keep the pets and little ones inside at night. "

We do.

"Your dogs may or may not act as a warning system."

You've recently met my dog & she's no wundercritter. ;) I do try to make sure she''s OK.

[Dr.Rob]

Labgrade,

My mountain girl gave me some info that she got from DOW. Soak some rags with ammonia and litter them around the property strategicly. Sure, it's chemical warfare but apparently, cats will NOT come near the stuff, or qed YOUR stuff.

Go figure.

[C.R.Sam]

trampled her Wormwood As in what you get oil of wormwood from ?
As in Absenthe ?

Oh my aching head just from the memories.:(

Sam

[Dr.Rob]

As in yes we are making a batch. shhhhhhhh.

(she's a pretty skiller brewer/distiller of brandy from choke cherries, prickly pears and other native fruits.)

Think the bear was trying to get sideways on thujone??

[QuarterBoreGunner]

Mountain Lions? Wild Cats?... Bears?...Deer?

Wow.


And all we have is the Westside Mob and the BigBlock Gang crossfire, to worry about; aside from the random violence in the city.


I envy you.

[Black Dragon]

We're having some fun now. I live about 35 miles from the City of Detroit
in a township called Canton. On Tuesday we had a couger siting in some of
the fields to the south of town. The little woman won't let me and the
dog go huntin:(

She thinks it will be to dangerous...... my question was for who? Me or the
or the couger??
We've had report of pet rabbits and other animals "disappearing". My wife's
friend lost 4 of her outdoor pet rabbits about two weeks ago. Right about
the time people were talking about seeing this feline.
It's amazing how an animal like this can hide in a City/Township of 78,100
people. That's not to mention the cities around Canton. DNR and animal
control have been out with tracking animals and have only found tracks of
"a large Feline type animal".
Also, my dogs are early warning defence. They bark at anything that gets
within 20 yards of the house, man or animal.

[cdbeaver]

In Omaha, Nebr., a city of about 350,000, last week, a full-grown cougar was tranquilized and captured within three or four blocks of the busiest intersection in town.

Call it a puma, mountain lion, cougar, or any other name, there isn't even a big hill within 300 miles of Omaha that a self-respecting big cat would want to be.

Director of Omaha's world-famed zoo shot the cat with a tranquilizer and said the animal would be transplanted to some zoo, but not back to the wilds because of its apparrent unconcern with humanity. Some cop with a shotgun wounded the beast in the hip after it had been tranquilized and was staggering around. Cat survived.

[Byron Quick]

I've a couple of cousins that unfortunately have permission to hunt where I hunt. Older cousin is a good shooter but brought his son. He has not taught his son how to shoot or where to shoot a deer. So his son shot it up the butt:rolleyes: It was a "clean" kill as far as the doe dying right there. But they didn't want to clean it. Left it hanging all night and then "gave" it to us when they left. Me and Al decided to put the carcass out where it might attract hogs or coyotes.

Something draggd it off. Only thing I know of that drags kills off like that is big cats. Hard clay pan. Didn't see any tracks. Just drag marks.

This was in eastern central Georgia about forty miles south of Augusta.

Between the boars and such as this...I've gotten so I stay armed on the place.

[USMC-Mustang]

When a lion kills, it'll eat the heart and shoulder first. If it is a lion I would bet it's a young lion just weened. Sounds like what a coyote or wolf would do. West Tx has a huge lion and coyote problem and everytime we came up on a lion kill (calf, goat, deer, javalina) the first thing eaten is the heart and shoulder. They love the blood. You can bet it'll be back the next day or two to start munching again. Thats when the traps came out. If we happened to miss it, we knew that same lion would be back in 24-28 days. They seem to stay on a schedule, and wonder the same Mountains, especially if they know prey looms about. Just my $.02


This one, however, was thinning out a goat herd and was taken at night after one of her kills with a 22-250.

http://www.hunt101.com/img/060112.jpg

Gotta love Tx, no season on lions, no limit, hunt them anyway you want. Just too darn many in the Davis/Guadalupe Mtns.

[Art Eatman]

Mustang, where do you hunt in the Davis?

We're bum deep in lion poop in South Brewster, for sure...

Art

[Subby]

Wormwood's some potent stuff. I've been tossed on it a few times.

Sub

[Sunray]

"...wouldn't just leave it lying there unless they were disturbed..." Neither would a big kitty. The ammonia isn't a great idea. Toxic. Moth balls, on the other hand, are cheaper, just as easy to come by and will do the same job.
USMC-Mustang, why is that cat smiling.? You shot him.
I wonder why you think there are too many of any animal? It's people who are crowding them out and they're just adapting. Just like the deer have learned that corn and soy beans are tasty, the big cats and bears have learned there's an easy meal near humans if they don't get caught. Not people usually, but we leave our food scraps etc everywhere.
Nearly every predator will drag a carcass out of sight. Doesn't want to be distrubed by people or other predators.

[Art Eatman]

sunray, a few years back I hunted an area up in the Davis Mountains of Texas, north from Fort Davis.

I found more lion tracks than deer tracks, and several more deer remains around the area than in previous years. Never saw a deer; no shot.

Got pretty much the same problem in south Brewster County. On one meddling-around back-country trek, I found the tracks of five different-sized lions. These were all made within the previous 12 hours, and were within two miles of each other. Three miles from my house. We're just really short of deer, down there...

Between Big Bend National Park and the state's Big Bend Ranch State Park, there's over a million acres of sanctuary.

Art

[Selfdfenz]

Sunray,
I can say without qualification being crowded is a problem only in some cases.
There are black bears and plenty of them in places in western NC where none were 20-30 years ago. Ditto for coy dogs and feral pigs.

We have bobcats picking off animals in the Fort Worth Zoo.

That's not crowding, that is expansion of their range.

[USMC-Mustang]

I grew up in Ft Davis and worked and hunted on several ranches in Jeff Davis County. Any time I take leave I head back there to hunt. Art, you wouldn't happen to know who the Sheriff of Jeff Davis County is do you?

[Art Eatman]

Mustang, I dunno. Not too long back there was some sort of serious squabble between the county commissioners and the sheriff; he may have resigned.

You might try Jack McNamara at http://nimbynews.com He keeps track of the local area politics, although he focuses on Alpine.

The Alpine Avalanche (or "Awfulunch", to some) has a website; you could query them.

Art

[cdbeaver]

A brief follow-up to my note about the mountain lion captured in Omaha recently. Seems the cops and civilian citizens have spotted another one not far from where the first was captured!

I think those big cats find the local dogs rather tasty. But there are also a heckuva lot of deer running around this part of the country. Game and Parks folks say highway deer kill is at its highest in October and November.

[labgrade]

Three houses down (about 1/4 mile), guys got a couple sheep - keeps 'em "indoors" at night. Sheep going nut-so & dogs really light up - he lit up the "yard" with halogens, but nothing.

Morning & there's definite cougar tracks in the yard.

[Grayrock]

A friend sent this to me.

Texas King Size.
>
>This guy killed this cougar recently in the Aledo area just west of
>Ft Worth. He was hunting coyotes on the Moncrief ranch using a
>varmit
>call. He was trying to sound like a wounded rabbit and instead of
>attracting
>coyotes, he attracted this 252 lb. cougar. Obviously he (the guy)
>was the
>victor. Per my source, this guy is about 6'2, not a small person.
>Look at the
>paws on this animal!
http://www.thehighroad.org/attachment.php?s=&postid=587473

[mete]

Grayrock, maybe you should check your sources. If I remember that photo appeared first on www.accuratereloading.com forum. It was taken in Washington state. The shooter is a guide there and he was shorter than 6'2". The cat weighed just under 200lbs. I guess this is like a fish story, give it another year and it will be 500 lbs.

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, it would be an exceptional lion in Texas to go over 150 pounds. And, like most species, they get bigger as you go north.

Art

[Grayrock]

Mybad- You mean everything I see on the internet that Al Gore invented is not correct?! :eek:

[gun-fucious]

i want to believe

[Grayrock]

Quick- somebody call Geraldo- that is the smallest elephant I've ever seen. Must be a pygmy species from darkest Africa- and it has to be true- I saw it on the High Road!

[gun-fucious]

"I see no elephant in my basement;
an elephant could not be concealed from sight in my basement;
therefore, there is no elephant in my basement."


Thats cause they hang out in the garage

:D