What to do?

Is the date wrong, or was this really taken in 2005?

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If you read the thread you will see that the picture was taken last Fri, 3-6-09...

Shoot the darn thing and be done with it. I am tired of living in the age of the offended.

The second person I sent this to also says housecat. This ends where it began, with everyone being able to believe what they want. I'll be watching for cougar sightings in Kansas but am betting there are none. It's not hard to believe there are cougars roaming Kansas now and then. There is a breeding population in SD and probably another in Nebraska. Where it really gets controversial is in places where the probability is much lower. Seems like every state in the east is having cougar sightings. One was treed in NW Wisconsin a few days ago and lots of pics taken from right under the tree. Little doubt about that one!

Look at the pixels included in it, the trees around, and the background in the pasture. Look at the build, the neck length, head size and shape, body proportions and shape, tail length and thickness.
If this were a cat in the pasture it would be a housecat the size of a bufalo. That my friends is a black felis domesticus (housecat) in a tree, much closer than the pasture.
Here is a jaguar.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/02/20/jaguar_photo.jpg
Here are some other cat side profiles.
http://www.northernjaguarproject.org/outreach/feline-photo-project
Cougar side view, a good one to show this apparition is not a cougar at all.
http://www.safaritaxidermy.com/plugins/albums/slideshow/slideshow.html
Heres the culprit.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/House_cat_by_alers.png
http://ericmaddern.co.uk/site/images/pictures/landscape_jpg1144Black-cat-on-snow-L.jpg
This is almost the same exact profile shot but going the opposite direction.
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.a.../www.best-cat-art.com/house-cat-pictures.html
After viewing these reference photos, anyone who could mistake a cougar, or any other larger cat with a housecat in this position needs not to be shooting at anything they are not 100% sure what it is, how far away its is.
Heck it stands more of a chance of being a chupacabra, after all in the 80s the country of Puerta Rico made the creature up to draw American tourist money into their local economy, right afterwards Mexico said they had them to, but both countries cant decide what size they are or what shape either. Texas jumped the tourist bandwagon with bigfoot, werewolves, shapeshifters, giant birds, and chupacabras in recent history.

Ohh.... Ok I get it ....the neighbor is tryin' to get the OP out huntin' a chupacabra.... My question is.......Why didn't he just ask him to go chupacabra huntin' instead of going through the effort of staging the photo?

C'mon we all did a little snipe huntin' at one time or another....

First of all, you have no responsibility to protect him regardless if your land surrounds his or not. Seconsd of all, lion attacks are rare. They do happen, but not often. Third, the prudent thing, IMO, to do is alert the local game and fish department to the situation, and ask their advice on the matter. Don't go hunting it, or anything of that nature without being aweare of the law and how they expect you to handle the issue. All in all, your neighbor sounds rather arrogent and demanding, and not very self-sufficient, to say the least. Again, you are NOT responsible or required to do ANYHTING. A wild animal is a wild animal, and no more your responsibility than anyone elses. If he insists something be done, put HIM in contact with the fish and game department, and let him deal with it.

In Pendleton County, WV a few years ago there was a sighting of what was said to be a black panther. The distance was determined to be 264 yards and through tracks and other sightings the animal was proven to have been a black domestic cat. A very large domestic cat, but a domestic cat all the same. I remind everyone again that the animal in this picture is silhouetted against the horizon, just like the rising moon is when so many people would swear it is larger than after it rises in the sky, but it isn't.

If this picture was in an eastern state we could send someone with the right equipment to precisely duplicate the photo with reference markers in the cat's location. There is a lot of interest in confirming or debunking sightings in the east. But in Kansas a cougar is rare but possible so no big deal.

Here's another housecat (this one in MI) alleged to have been a black panther, and the cougar treed in WI last week.

woof....If the OP's photo is not a hoax being perpetrated on him by his neighbor...and I don't know if it is or not...Then the distance between the fence and the ridge (known to be 80ish yards) certainly precludes that being a house cat.

Light tricks, optical illusion..difficulty in judging distance from photos all go out the window when the distance is known...

It's either a hoax.....a photoshop....or a big, BIG animal...

If it is a house cat it must be at the fence line.. and the brush in the pic isn't big enough to support a cat in that posture.

I don't claim to know what it is... But I know what it isn't..

It's been fun though..

Wheeler44

TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER" Your only responsibility in this matter is to find just what in the heck that critter is and report back to your friends on the High Road.......

Whew... cats.

Gets the old heart ticking better than coffee in the morning. And Im a cat person too.

Looks like a coyote to me.

Snares work great.

Wheeler, Try to watch the Monster Quest epidode on the Pendleton County black panther. It was shown to be 264 yds away and 24 inches long. I contend that if you had seen this animal in person you would have known it was way too small to be a cougar. Don't forget that picture was taken through binoculars. I won't claim it is impossible that it's a cougar, but I won't budge from 99% certain

My son even asked before we left the house. Dad aren't you going to take your rifle. Perhaps next time I will listen a little better to the wisdom of youth.

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jbkebert: I can't tell if it's a cat or a canine from that photo. But it sounds like your son is smarter than all of us. Good for him! Is he old enough to carry the rifle? Perhaps you should at least carry an adequate sidearm on your hikes.

Did your neighbor actually say in so many words..."What are YOU going to do about it?"

What a foolish question to begin with. I guess in hindsight, I would have told him something like..."I'm gonna carry my sidearm and protect my family - just in case it is a predator. What are YOU going to do?"

With four young'uns, you've got a handful all right. Bravo for doing what you think is right for keeping them safe.

I think it wise to tuck a handgun under my shirt though.

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Maybe...but a holster (inside or outside your shirt) might be handier, and in my opinion, safer than tucking it in your pants (if that's what you meant).

jbkebert, In general about cougars: They are stealthier and faster than you could ever hope to be. If one were ever to attack you or one of your kids, it would be on you before you knew it, and on your back. Dangerous to yourself and anyone around to try to get a shot off. I know on TV we are supposed to shoot them in mid-leap, but it doesn't happen that way. Your advantage lies in being bigger and in the fact that cougars, compared to say bears, are not that persistent when their prey fights back.

If you are really worried, keep your kids close in a pack. In the rare cases where cougars have attacked humans they did not attack groups, they went for a lone straggler and the littlest one is preferred. You don't want to shoot a cougar that's on your kid's back but you do want to have something to wail on the cat with. Something like a billy club would work. A cougar cracked once with nim-chucks (sp?) is going to drop his prey and run. In one of the more recent cougar attacks, a woman in her sixties wacked a cougar who was on her husband with a stick and he took right off.

Whack a kitty...

If you are really worried, keep your kids close in a pack. In the rare cases where cougars have attacked humans they did not attack groups, they went for a lone straggler and the littlest one is preferred. You don't want to shoot a cougar that's on your kid's back but you do want to have something to wail on the cat with.

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But he doesn't have to worry because the "experts" say that it is just a kitty cat...Right?

Wheeler, Right, he doesn't have to worry about the animal in that picture. But he is worried about cougars anyway so I'm telling him about cougar defense. Frankly, I think he should worry more about his neighbor than any wildlife.

Worry about this!

jbkebert, You might tell your neighbor that a man was arrested in Kansas in 2008 for a Cougar he killed in Dec 2007. More importantly, that was the first Cougar killed in Kansas in 104 years! I personally don't doubt that they are migrating through now and then, but a Cougar (unless a released captive) is going to be far too wary to be sauntering by human habitation like that.

HEEERE KITTYKITTYKITTY..

Whoah, NOT THAT KITTY!YAHHHH////

Aint pretty.

How bout them there tall grass eh? You can put a lion in there during summer.

The woman who smacked the cougar with the log she could barely swing was much younger when the attack happened, and the cougar took several stabs by him with his fingers in its eyes, several of his hardest punches, a few stabs in the eyes with a steel pen by her, and many hard smacks with a log she could barely swing, all of this and it didnt even flinch. Its was their combined teamwork and effort that eventually the young 80lb cat decided it wasnt worth the effort, although the guy spent the next 6 months recovering in the hospital, he barely survived to see the hospital.
The trees in the midground in the photo would more than hold a housecat, even a large one, anyone who keeps housecats would know just how resourceful and acrobatic as well light they are.
If the animal in question were really at the distance claimed by the neighbor to be, it would be the size of a large bull or bufalo. At that distance a cougar would appear less than half that size, and a whole world thinner in shape, also a different color, there are no black cougars.
If it were a coyote is would appear like a set of furry twigs at that distance, wrong shape for a canine of any kind. Even my 28+ inch (at the shoulder) tall husky/lab/shepard mix would appear to be less than a third as thick as that animal at a shorter distance, and hes 82 lbs.
Theres no mistaking that photo, housecat, Ive seen cats follow squirrels down a branch to a point that the branch was almost as thin as a number 2 pencil. Of course one the size of my beasty here at home wouldnt be able to do that.

By the way, thats 72 lbs of Siberian Husky the cat is staring down.

tail is too short to be a cougar (unless the rest of the tail is somehow obscured in the photo).
It's probably a dog