[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.

[Dick Vomer]

shoot, shovel and shut up.

[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.)

[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.

[RichInOC]

“In Rocky Mountains...pussy eats YOU!”

Seriously, they ought to change the dog’s name from “Duke” to “Bait”.

[goldstategop]

We're in trouble when we treat our pets like little humans. Dogs and cats are wonderful companions but people they aren't.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus