Perils of animal attraction (mountain lions)

Denver Post ^ | 25 nov 07 | Kevin Simpson

[rellimpank]

Wildlife goes head-to-head with passionate pet owners who encroach on habitat in a battle for territorial rights and respect. And as state officials know, there is no bad guy.

Well after midnight, a groggy but frantic Jeremy Kocar groped for his hunting rifle and fumbled ammunition all over the floor. His wife screamed hysterically while, outside the door to their camp trailer, a predator prepared to make a meal of the family pet.Kocar managed to load three rounds and stumble into the dark of the wooded foothills near Nederland. Guided by a flashlight's beam, he steadied the rifle and fired a single bullet through the head of a 160-pound mountain lion that had clamped its jaws into a dog named Duke, still tethered to a tree.

What he considered a lucky shot — and the jarring recoil of public opinion that followed — marked a flashpoint for the state's evolving animal ethos

[FlJoePa]

While what he did was right, if the dog is such a “big baby” to them, what is he doing tethered to a tree in the middle of the wildlife all night? Talk about asking for trouble.

[MaryFromMichigan]

That was my first thought as well!

[Dick Vomer]

shoot, shovel and shut up.

[Mr Rogers]

They were acting like suburbanites. I doubt they gave a moment’s thought to the possibility (probability?) of an attack.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Above, Jeremy Kocar sits with his dog Duke, who was tethered outside his owners' trailer near Nederland when he was attacked by a mountain lion last month. Kocar killed the big cat with a single shot. (Joshua Lawton, Daily Camera file photo)

Kocar's wife, Angela Fox, was the first to hear a commotion outside the trailer where the couple — Wisconsin residents on the road doing wildfire mitigation work — had set up temporary residence. When she shined a flashlight toward the area where Duke had been tethered for the night, she saw a mountain lion's jaws clamped around the 9-month-old puppy they'd rescued from a shelter.

"He's such a big baby, a part of the family," Fox says of the 60-pound Duke. "I make breakfast and he sits on the floor next to the table. He knows he gets a plate too. Lunch time, he knows he gets half a sandwich."

Duke's status has become the norm, experts say.

...

That's where Duke, who took 79 stitches but survived the mountain lion attack, sleeps these days — on the bed in his owners' trailer as they've moved to other remote sites doing wildfire mitigation work.

But wildlife advocates questioned why Duke was tethered outside in big-cat country, and even accused Kocar of "baiting" the mountain lion.

"I don't think purposely, but they did it negligently," says Wendy Keefover-Ring of Sinapu Carnivore Protection Program, a conservation group that urged the Division of Wildlife to prosecute Kocar.

"We at least wanted a fine, some kind of message sent that it's not OK to be irresponsible," she says.

...

She's toured the state stressing the need to coexist with the carnivores, who provide crucial ecological balance. But the Nederland incident touched off her frustration at the killing of mountain lions — sometimes by the DOW itself — for what she considers irresponsible behavior of property owners.

At the DOW offices in Denver, call center manager Dick Myers and his workers took about 50 e-mails on the incident and close to 250 calls.

"People on both sides of it," he says. "Probably seven out of 10 were against ticketing him. The other 30 percent figured anybody dumb enough to tether dogs in lion country should be ticketed."

...

Kocar and Fox have moved on, but the mountain lion incident has stayed with them.

Kocar, 31, doesn't like to talk about it anymore after feeling his comments in the media were misunderstood, his wife says. Fox, 25, adds that her husband "doesn't feel like a hero" despite the comments of grateful neighbors — one of whom delivered a turkey loaf for their injured dog.

She says that they had no idea a mountain lion would actually venture that close to humans.

"We should have known, but we made a mistake, a terrible mistake," (Which the dog is paying for) Fox says. "And we're feeling the after-effects."

The couple spent about $1,000 on surgery, anesthesia, stitches and drainage tubes to hasten Duke's recovery. Fox became jumpy and has been hesitant to leave their trailer after dark ever since the confrontation.

"I had a respect for wildlife before, but now I have even more respect," she says. "I learned to be a lot more cautious. We're in their territory. This is their home too."

[dljordan]

“Well after midnight, a groggy but frantic Jeremy Kocar groped for his hunting rifle and fumbled ammunition all over the floor.”

When I used to live in the sticks in Tennessee I kept a 12 Ga. shotgun load with #4 Buckshot right next to the door. I also didn’t keep my dogs tied to a tree.

[org.whodat]

Man isn’t it illegal to use your dog for bait?

[Condor51]

"A lot of people don't have a wide background with how wildlife behaves," says Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the state Division of Wildlife. "There's a percentage raised thinking that wildlife is like in Disney cartoons."

That 'lot' are people like ... Rooty Julie Annie.

People who've never spent a night OUT of the city, i.e.: Camping, Hiking, Fishing or Hunting. Their first hand knowledge of 'wildlife' consists of what they've seen at the city zoo. And the first time they saw a compass, it was in the overhead counsel in their SUV.

(That same 'lot' want to impose their cockeyed city-centric views on the rest of us.)

[mamelukesabre]

Oh come on!

Lot’s of people saw a digital compass integrated into the rear view mirror of their minivan.

[FlJoePa]

The article says he was doing some sort of wildlife expert-type work. Maybe he’s not real good at his day job.

[o_zarkman44]

A recent true incident in Missouri......

My fathers farm, north Missouri.
He has raised sheep on this farm since the early 1970’s.
Occasionally a coyote would get a lamb. Losses to coyotes might have averaged one a year.
This past spring, 18 lambs were killed over a period of about 2 weeks. Broad daylight. Some Within just a few yards of their night confinement, but during the day. Their heads were ripped off. In broad daylight. Atypical of coyotes, which avoid areas close to the house.
Typically a coyote will go for the throat to kill. Then they eat the innards through the abdomen.
Missouri Dept of Conservation was contacted. Their solution was to keep the sheep in the lot, denying them of pasture grazing during their normal day. Requiring the feeding of hay when hay is normally ment for winter.
Conservation Dept’s advice is totally unreasonable because it changes the established practices of livestock farming on the land that has been used traditionally for decades with few predator problems.
A local trapper was authorized to set some traps around the night time sheep confinement lot. The thought was trapping for coyotes, but the carnage did not add up to the normal habits of a coyote or two.
One of the traps was sprung. In fact, the trap disappeared.
The trap was staked down. The chain was broken. A 40 pound coyote does not have the strength to break that gauge of chain. However it is completely probable that a 150 pound mountain lion could break that same chain.
Conservation Dept was contacted again. Several agents, with the assistance of an aircraft spotter converged one day on the farm. Later in the day, Conservation agents told my father the problem had been taken care of. Dad never saw what the predator was, nor was he told specifically, although the coyote was hinted at. Strange that Dept of Conservation acted so secretive and the entire incident was more or less passed off, attributed to coyotes although never confirmed. The lamb killing did stop after one third of the spring lambs were killed.

There have been numerous big cat, mountain lion, lynx, or whatever they are called, sightings in and around North Missouri. According to Dept of Conservation, there are no big cats in North Missouri except a few Bobcats.

BIG CATS DO NOT JUST START APPEARING IN AN AREA. THEY WERE PLANTED THERE BY CONSERVATION DEPT. OFFICIALLY, THERE ARE NO BIG CATS IN MISSOURI. SECRETLY, BIG CATS ARE BEING PLANTED TO ESTABLISH HABITATS WITH TOTAL DISREGARD TO HUMAN AND AGRICULTURAL LIVESTOCK SAFETY.

And it is illegal to kill the cats, except bobcat, who can be trapped in some regions of the state.
These wildlife experts, WITH TOTAL DISREGARD FOR ESTABLISHED POPULATIONS AND RURAL PRACTICES, ARE PLANTING THESE BIG CATS.
My father lost one third of his spring lamb crop. There will be no profit this year. Did anyone offer compensation?
NO!
Was he stupid for allowing the sheep to go to pasture, knowing there have been sightings (completely unofficial of course) of big cats ranging the area?
NO!!
Just like the dog that was attacked, people should not, and do not expect attacks by mountain lions because those populations have been considered under control and managed in habitat away from most established areas of human activity. What we are now seeing is a deliberate expansion of those mountain lion, wolf and other predators to other habitats. With total disregard for human and livestock safety I might add.

For all the wolf and mountain lion lovers out there, a bullet in the head is totally reasonable when a predator invades and threatens man, livestock, pets or whatever.
I have no sympathy for the predator and all sympathy for the pet, and the people protecting their dog or their livestock. The bullet and the shovel are the bestdefense against the envirowackos who think wildlife habitat trumps established human habitat.

[Savage Beast]

How come the dog was tethered to a tree? Are these people nuts?

I live in The Middle of Nowhere and have lots of animals. The animals ALL come inside at night. The cats never go outside, except in an inclosed area in which they can get sunlight and vitamin D. The dogs are always in the house or the fenced-in yard.

[Kay Ludlow]

It’s happening in PA too. My whole life, till the last 10 years, no one saw any mountain lions - they were “extinct” in PA. There were rumors that a few lived deep in the forest, but would be shot if they were seen because of the danger. About 10 years ago, I started hearing rumors that people had seen mountain lions. In the last five years, 6 people that I know personally (including my daughter) have seen mountain lions. Is it mass delusion going around? Or is there a growing population of mountain lions in central PA? According to the game commission, they have found mountain lions, but they’ve all been escaped pets... They came up with that story as the number of people offering proof of mountain lions grew to the point that the game commission was being openly accused of lying - so they came up with something that would acknowledge the proof, but deny the facts. Funny thing about their story though, while I know all these people that have seen mountain lions out along our roads, I don’t know anyone that has ever had one as a pet!

[William Tell]

o_zarkman44 said: "According to Dept of Conservation, there are no big cats in North Missouri except a few Bobcats."

My wife hates snakes. As a result, she is very attentive and sees snakes all the time in our northern Kalifornia area. I very rarely see a snake at all.

For the same reason, probably, my wife spots the occassional mountain lion on our place. Fortunately, they are very wary of humans and will opt to run off. There are plenty of deer and turkey around to keep them fed and uninterested in being around the house itself.

A couple of years ago there were multiple reports in the local newspaper about killings of fenced in stock. The reports claimed that the most likely culprits were large dogs running loose.

It was very clearly due to mountain lion attacks. The media are complicit in a program to turn all of our habitat back to the large predators at the expense of man. I hope they get eaten in their own back yards.

[Travis McGee]

Huntin’ over bait?

[FlJoePa]

Nice rant, but the dog was tied to a friggin’ tree. What would you guess would be the end result in such a careless, thoughtless, and stupid act?

[Myrddin]

The guy defended his family member who happened to be a dog in this case. The big kitty trespassed onto his property.

[Travis McGee]

“My land, my meat” is my policy.

Like you said, the kitty was a tresspasser.

[o_zarkman44]

And sheep were in a pen. So what, lock them up?

The issue is containment. Pet owners were doing the responsible thing, and customary as a matter of fact, in tying up the dog. The chances that a mountain lion would just happen to be in the area, when not considered a customary threat, were slim. Perhaps the dog was tied outside so he could relieve himself? I guess they could let the dog roam and violate how many laws.

Of course, the cat has all advantage according to law.
End result.dead mountain lion.
Customary ending to a killer animal. Good riddence.

Nice try.