Cougar sighting

[Highland Lofts]

We are doing some roof repairs in Mineral WA. population 219. It is a real small town out in the Cascade Mountains 1/2 an hour south of Eatonville. We are staying in a small camping ground on Mineral lake (18 camping spots).
Last night I steped outside at 12:45am to take a leak and was standing at the back of a permanant camper parked next to the road when I seen a set of head lights comeing from the left. A big full size cougar came running up the road a little bit in front of the car.
It was about 35 feet from where I was standing.
We have been working here since Monday and we see deer around town every day. The small town is at 1,400 feet elevation and is surounded by large fir trees. It is up in the Cascade Mountains.

 

[Ironicaintit]

Neat! Cougar is my favorite animal.
They’ve probably watched you a dozen times, and ya never knew.
I’ve been lucky and have seen 7 of them, in 5 sightings (once a kitten and mama, another time a pair of yearlings)

I’m pretty thankful to live up in the woods

 

[Captcurt]

According to AGFC we have no cougars in Arkansas. I guess the picture of a cat with a looong tail on a neighboring farm's trail camera was something else. Sure, it may have been a 100 pound house cat.

 

[George P]

They say here in Florida there are NO cougars outside of the Everglades; yet they get hit all the time up here in North Florida..............

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

According to AGFC we have no cougars in Arkansas. I guess the picture of a cat with a looong tail on a neighboring farm's trail camera was something else. Sure, it may have been a 100 pound house cat.

We didn't have any in Kansas either.
Until we did...

 

[FL-NC]

They say here in Florida there are NO cougars outside of the Everglades; yet they get hit all the time up here in North Florida..............

Yep. Also black jaguarundis, which get spotted and their images captured on trail cams from time to time up here, which do not exist (extinct from a released population decades ago) according to the authorities. But they cannot be legally harvested- even though they aren't here.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

^^^^
Yep, when we didn't have them here in Kansas it was also illegal to kill one.

 

[WisBorn]

I think we have cougars in all of the lower 48. Not sure about Hawaii or Alaska?

 

[Highland Lofts]

I have been out here in Washington State for twenty years. I have seen four cougars out in the wild.the first one I seen was about ten years ago, it was a full grown cat. I was driving home from a friends house in Marysville WA. around 10pm. The cat ran across the road and didn't waste no time.

The second cat was right in town (Arlington WA.) it was around 1am. I took a walk down to the Safeway grocery store two blocks from the house. We are three small.blocks from the woods and there have been cougar sightings.
There a.is a large vacant lot between here and the store. That is where I seen the cat. They did eventually tree it, tranqulized it, taged it and took it about fifteen miles away and released it..

The next cougar was a juvinile, about half grown. I was out shooting with.my grandson. On the way out of the Cascade Mountains the cat ran across the road. I pulled over & shut the truck off and watched to see if the mama cougar would cross the road.

Then that big cat last night.

 

[WestKentucky]

They say here in Florida there are NO cougars outside of the Everglades; yet they get hit all the time up here in North Florida..............

I saw evidence of that a couple years ago up in the panhandle. I don’t recall exactly where I was at, but it was somewhere roughly north of Panama City. I didn’t believe what I saw so I turned around and sure enough the car there with a mangled carcass with fresh blood in the road. That was early morning as we were headed towards Navarre. It was my first time seeing one at all outside of a zoo. Since then I have seen one on the side of the road almost as if it were waiting for a chance to cross the road at its leisure. That one was in the Southeastern corner of Alabama, so again not too far.

 

[Milt1]

Consider yourselves lucky if you see one in the wild as very few do. I saw one outside of Haines Alaska.

 

[Highland Lofts]

Earlier this year one got hit by a train and got cut in half about thirty miles north of our house up in Bow Washington.




A couple of days before cougar hunting was done earlier this year a older gentleman shot this cougar up in Bow Washington across the street from Kessilrings Gun Shop.





This cougar was shot last week by a guy out bow hunting.





Two & a half years old. Had a ear tag.

 

[troy fairweather]

Ya we don't have them in ny, guess the 200lb cat I seen like 6 years ago was a house cat, or the many people some I know who have them on trail came, but that can't be real or why would the confiscate the photos and video.

Oh don't for get that deer I found 15 feet up a tree on time, guess a squirrel got hungry and dragged it up there.

 

[billtool]

Wow! That is awesome. I hope to have a shot at one someday.

 

[Highland Lofts]

The four I have seen didn't waste any time yo be gone. Even if I had a gun in hand there was no way to get a shot of at them.
I cost so much to hunt out here in Washington State I will never get one.
Most cougars that get shot out here are harvested by people who are out hunting for other spieces suvh as deer, elk, and other game animals and the cougar is just a lucky cross of paths.

That one cougar that older gentleman shot that tom across the street from Kesselrings Gun Shop called that cat in with a fawn in distress call. He had seen a larger tom in that area a few weeks before that was harvested by a fellow cat hunter.

I will be putting out trail cams, if I catch any cats on the trail cam I might buy a license & a FoxPro caller and give it a shot.

 

[George P]

When I lived out West in Carson City, we had one come down from the surrounding mountains and park his butt on the second floor balcony of a motel in the middle of town. He was just sunning himself, but by the amount of TV vans, police and fire, you'd have sworn there was a serial killer with a hostage in a room. DOW tranquilized him and relocated him back into the wild. There were always reports of cat attacks up in the mountains during the winter when folks would be cross-country skiing. They always attacked from above and behind.

 

[.308 Norma]

Consider yourselves lucky if you see one in the wild as very few do. I saw one outside of Haines Alaska.

I do consider myself lucky to live in a place where cougar sightings really aren't all that uncommon. There's a taxidermist a few miles from here that has a pack of lion hounds. As a sideline to his taxidermy, he guides people on mountain lion hunts in the hills just west of here. They're usually successful.
Edited for correction - My wife informed me that the old taxidermist/mountain lion hunter near here passed away. There's still a lot of cougars around though, and seeing one of them is not that uncommon. Some rancher friends of ours that live about 5 miles west of here could tell you all about how "uncommon" (NOT) cougar sightings are.

 

[buck460XVR]

I live in Wisconsin. Cougars were functionally extinct here since right after the Civil War. For most of my life I have heard reports of cougar sightings in the state and the response from the DNR used to be "you were mistaken" or "it must have been a tame one that got loose". Lately they have kinda switched to "yes, there are cougars that travel thru the state, but we have no viable population here". Last few years the neighbors by our hunting area have been getting pictures regularly of cougars on the game cameras. Local Houndsmen runnin' 'yotes claim they tree more cougars lately than bobcats. I personally had one cross the road in front of me about a month ago coming back from puttin' in a food plot. Not a doubt of what it was. I would assume the increase in deer populations in this area of the state has affected cougars like it has affected wolf populations. Just too appealing to the big predators. I have no problem with them being around. No different than the bears and wolves we have.

 

[Obturation]

I live in Wisconsin. Cougars were functionally extinct here since right after the Civil War. For most of my life I have heard reports of cougar sightings in the state and the response from the DNR used to be "you were mistaken" or "it must have been a tame one that got loose". Lately they have kinda switched to "yes, there are cougars that travel thru the state, but we have no viable population here". Last few years the neighbors by our hunting area have been getting pictures regularly of cougars on the game cameras. Local Houndsmen runnin' 'yotes claim they tree more cougars lately than bobcats. I personally had one cross the road in front of me about a month ago coming back from puttin' in a food plot. Not a doubt of what it was. I would assume the increase in deer populations in this area of the state has affected cougars like it has affected wolf populations. Just too appealing to the big predators. I have no problem with them being around. No different than the bears and wolves we have.

I live in Northern IL (10 miles from WI border) , about 6 or so years ago I saw a big one cross the street in front of my house . no doubt what it was. If they're here i'm sure there are more up north.

 

[Milt1]

I do consider myself lucky to live in a place where cougar sightings really aren't all that uncommon. There's a taxidermist a few miles from here that has a pack of lion hounds. As a sideline to his taxidermy, he guides people on mountain lion hunts in the hills just west of here. They're usually successful.
Edited for correction - My wife informed me that the old taxidermist/mountain lion hunter near here passed away. There's still a lot of cougars around though, and seeing one of them is not that uncommon. Some rancher friends of ours that live about 5 miles west of here could tell you all about how "uncommon" (NOT) cougar sightings are.

I'm glad for you that cougar sightings aren't rare, however, for the average person living in the U.S. the overriding majority will never see a cougar in the wild, that's my point!

 

[five.five-six]

Earlier this year one got hit by a train and got cut in half about thirty miles north of our house up in Bow Washington.

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Why does it seem to me that a rancher took care of a problem and that’s how he destroyed the evidence?

 

[.455_Hunter]

How does a cougar get hit by a train???????

I have been face-to-face with cats many times since first stumbling into one at age 10 while hiking. One of the reasons I started being armed at age 13 with a proper handgun.

 

[Highland Lofts]

Each full.grown cougar will.kill an average ofca deer a week, so round it off to 50 deer a year,
Washington State says that there is between 1,900 and 2,100 cougars with in this State. So lets say there are 2,000 cougars here, times that by 50 deer per cat that amounts to 100,000 deer a year taken out of the yearly cycle. Then you take the averge yearly deer deaths from the wolves out here the bears & bobcats out here killing deer gawns & elk calves and then the deer fawns & elk calves killed by the large numbers of coyotes the state deer & elk herds don't stand a snow balls chance in hell to survive.
One study done by the State Wildlife Agency and an Indian Tribe over on the Olymic Pennisula a few years ago came up with a figure of only 12,5 % of the deer & elk in that region will live to two years old.
Here in the state of Washington the average yearly deer kill by hunters is 26,000 deer.
New york state is smaller in square miles and their average deer kill by hunters is 220,000.
Pennsylvania is smaller in square miles then New York and their average deer kill by hunters is 330,000 deer a year.

Predators play a huge part in the low deer & elk numbers. I'd rather not have the predators and have more deer & elk to hunt.
I do like seeing the cougars out in the wild, but there is a price to pay for haveing them in the wild.

 

[Highland Lofts]

How do people get hit by trains? I would think people are more inteligent then animals.
When I was working at the dairy farm a few years ago a girl who was down swimming at the river at the farm was hit & cut in half by a freight train.
Things happen.

 

[.308 Norma]

I'm glad for you that cougar sightings aren't rare, however, for the average person living in the U.S. the overriding majority will never see a cougar in the wild, that's my point!

I get that! I also remember that this is the second time I've seen a post by you about your seeing a cougar when you were in Alaska. And I thought that was a strange thing to tell about the first time I read it until I saw you're located in N.C., where cougars in the wild probably are pretty rare. It's not like that everywhere.
At least every couple of years a cougar ends up wandering into Pocatello (about 25 miles north of here) and the Fish and Game Department has to dart it and haul it back out into the hills. You can look it up with a simple Google search if you don't believe me. Of course you probably don't consider a cougar on campus at Idaho State University actually "in the wild."
I'm just messing with you Milt 1. I actually agree with you in some ways - "the overriding majority" of people in the U.S. will never see a cougar in the wild in their lifetimes. But that's because "the overriding majority" of people in the U.S. live in the big cities of the east and west coasts.
Oh, and one more thing - if you look it up, you'll find out Alaska is not all that rife with cougars either. The cougar population in Alaska is growing, but it's not as large as I would have presumed before I did a search on it.