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."
Well, it sure looks like the mountain lion did.
Just going on the fact that a; mountain lion populations are in some places, outstripping food supply, b; the competition for food must be pretty fierce, thus c; they're coming into populated areas looking for food.
The fact that one snatched a dog off a front porch should give one pause as to the audacity and probably desperation involved.
Children would not be safe under these circumstances.
Although, I doubt such a fervent animal lover would really care.
Animal worshipers are disgusting enemies of our Constitution and nation.
We need the rest of the default process and resulting smaller government. NIMBYs, go home!
I don’t see anything wrong with “canned” hunting. They are animals. With your logic, when they get ready to load chickens in crates from the chicken houses, they should open the doors and let them have a chance to run for their lives first.
Meoooowwww!
Bang!
Meoooouch!
There is a predator hunter who teaches traping and predator hunting nationally. Of all the electronic calls he has used, the most sucessful for calling in all predators has been of a human infant’s cry.
I find THAT disturbing!
I have never heard that before that is interesting. And, yes, disturbing.
That cat is gigantic. It’s looks like something out of Africa.
From Fawn, of course: “They are proudly displaying GOD’s creature hanging like it was a piece of garbage.”
That is already OK’ed by God. Remember that bit about who gave us “dominion over the earth, ...”?
Dominion includes removal of dangerous or destructive beasts. SAme for dangerous or destructive people, as the Commandment was “Don’t Murder” not e commonly held error “Don’t Kill”.
Hint: Consider carefully before disputing Carry_Okie on theology. Just to save wear and tear on your molar enamel.
Fawn, hunters have been proudly displaying their kills since we began the long walk from Olduvai Gorge to America.
That picture is to men what showing a baby by the mother is to women.
I suggest considering acceptance of human nature.
“The cats are only doing what GOD intended for them to do.”
I have faced a mountain lion with a very small rifle in the dead of the night. I now carry a .45-70.
It's a site not a sight.
You’re right...thanks.
Why do you hate farmers and love big cats so much?
You need to train the cats to provide the raw material for filling the shelves at your grocery store...
Once again you have proved you are clueless.
Stay in the city Fawn. Mountain lions love Fawns.
“Those two hix in the pictures are right out of Deliverance movie.”
Have you any idea what one of these would do to a Fawn much less a full size deer or an unarmed human?
I would love to see a cat that size in the wild. I'd love it because it's so much better than the one that size that you don't see.
PING this one over to Slings and Arrows. :)=^..^=
What is canned hunting?
This is canned hunting
At first I thought canned hunting was about people who
complain about killing animals or fish but will gladly
go to the store and buy meat and fish. Ha HA
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