Posted on 04/17/2012 11:58:05 AM PDT by Red Steel
The ranchers in Indian Valley, Genesee and Taylorsville, Plumas Co. have had 7 mountain lions killed this year after they had lost pets and livestock. One after this one was killed. Alicia Knadler, Indian Valley editor, wrote the following story in the March 27 Lassen County Times.
"Blood and gore and the blank stares of his baby and adult goats greeted Genesee youth Paul Astles when he went to do his chores in the barn before school Monday, March 12.
"He discoved a full-scale slaughter of his kids and adults. (Heather Kingdon told me he lost nine head that night.) "It was a mess in there," said a fellow rancher who saw it.
"Astles is the same young man who lost several goats to mountain lions in late January.
"There were four lions together on that hunt, according to Heather Kingdon, the neighbor whose border collie puppy was snatched off the porch by a lion the day before. That lion was killed with the dog's body still in its mouth.
"Kingdon saw three lions that were probably a mother and her young, and another adult, a rather skinny female.
"She was afraid this new kill was another group hunt, unheard of in mountain lions, but a professional tracker doesn't think so. "I saw one track, a big one", she said, before preparing for yet another night hunt Tuesday, March 13.
"A lion's modus operandi is to partially bury its kill and return to feed at a later time, probably the next night. And that is exactly when the hunter met the biggest tomcat he'd ever seen in his life.
"It was a monster cat," he said.
"Estimates were that it weighed close to 200 pounds. Lions do not hunt in groups, that is one thing he and the experts at the Dept. of Fish and Game agree on.
DFG public information officer Andrew Hughan was emphatic about that and refused to validate the possibility of a group hunt by other than a mother and her young.
"There is no history, science or evidence to support that," he said. "Mountain lions are solitary animals."
"This makes the sixth mountain lion killed in Indian Valley since late January.
"The fifth one was killed in the Williams Valley area of Greenville in late February. To learn more and find safety tips, visit the DFG mountain lion information page at dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion .
"Heather Kingdon authored a guest post about this experience Thursday, March 15, on thebeefjar.com .
"Scroll down the page to see her story and pictures titled "Guest Post: Active Environmentalist." Heather wrote: "The few live goats that are left are locked in the barn where the mare and foals are housed. The bodies of the nine (9) dead are piled in one place, so the lion will come to a distinct area. A trick wire is placed on the top goat's carcass so when it is moved an alarm that the Tracker has, will go off. The waiting begins. At 10 p.m. the alarm is sounded. Our hound man gets his dogs and as he approaches the barn he see the lion emerge from the barn and leap over the 6'6" fence without touching, loping across the arena and heading toward the mountain. The hounds give chase and soon the lion is treed. It is huge. The biggest lion our tracker has ever seen in his many years. The lion is shot and falls, the wind is howling and the rain is here, coming down in sheets."
"Document the damage. Document the results. Document the loss. All are documented, all is legal. The depredation was a success; yet there is no celebration at the Walking G Ranch. The dead are counted and the living are being cared for by the young man, Paul, of 13 years of age who they belong to. The nannies that are alive have lost their young, the young that survived have lost their mothers. Each kid must be fed three times a day and the nannies milked, for they won't accept another's young at this point. Chores are a welcome distraction. The filling of water buckets, cleaning the stalls. Chickens to be let out. Horses fed."
What a disturbing picture. The cats are only doing what GOD intended for them to do. Those two hix in the pictures are right out of Deliverance movie.
California? Meowwwww!
C’mon now... this occurred AFTER their goats were killed. I’d want to take that creature down, too.
Meoooowwww!
This is so sad. What a beautiful cat. :(
good riddance....those goat kids could have EASIlY BEEN REAL KIDS!!!!!!
I’ve got a mountain lion attacking my horses. So far he’s only injured one horse twice. He launches his attacks from where his tail is twitching a foot from the grand kids sand box.
I’m only going to do what GOD intended me to do an string him up just like in the picture.
BAD kitty!
big cat!
And you are right out of Democratic Underground!
Did you even READ the story???
The lion sought out their pets and lifestock, not wild deer and rabbits, as GOD intended. Real MEN fixed it. Good for them.
Hix (sic) indeed... What unmitigated slander!
You must live in a city and have never been stalked by a big lion.
Your comment is much more disturbing to me.
I was stalked by two lions, a mother and her young I assume, and they came within seven feet of getting me in the dark before I took action.
Yup, kill things, and they don't care if it's you or your kids. Here is what GOD had to say about that:
If you keep His Law:
What you know - or care - about GOD could fit in a thimble. Those two people are unrecognizeable in that photo, to you (which is why you called them "hix") because they are MEN. Men see that a wild, dangerous animal is killing their livestock and threatening the safety of their families and community, and go out and KILL it, while you sip a latte and tsk. That is what GOD made MEN to do.
GOD finds YOU sickening.
And so do I.
A bit late wasn't it? I've been hunted too. How did it feel to feel like food?
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