[Robert A Cook PE]

It’s “interesting” that the many state wildlife agencies seem to “consistently” deny, deny, deny cougar incidents in every one of their states (where the deadly cats were previously held to be extinct!) UNTIL they get a dead body brought in.

Seems the fish & wildlife fanatics would be taking the opposite attitude - are they actually happier that the animals are extinct in their area, or alive in their area?

[Sopater]

It’s “interesting” that the many state wildlife agencies seem to “consistently” deny, deny, deny cougar incidents in every one of their states (where the deadly cats were previously held to be extinct!) UNTIL they get a dead body brought in.

I think that it goes back to the idea that the gov't agencies seem to think that we have to be protected from ourselves because we (the populous) are prone to irrational fear and panic if we are told that there is a potential danger in our midst. They're probably just trying to keep us all from killing ourselves in mass hysteria. (/sarc)

[neverdem]

Parks officials urge lawmakers: Keep gun ban (on carrying loaded guns into national parks)

[Smokin' Joe]

Some just might be happier with the predators, especially if they graduated in the last few years.

See post 30. This may seem like tinfoil hat stuff, but the UN has been behind global land management for decades, and their fellow travelers, environmentalists, and others have a vision of generally depopulating the rural heartland of America, or at least herding all the people into 'urban islands' with narrow transport corridors.

Of course, no one has mentioned where the food is going to come from when all that farmland and pasture goes to seed...

Another Buffalo Commons article which was written when the economy here took a severe and abrubt downturn in '99--oil was so low ($4.50/bbl for sour, $6.50/bbl for sweet) that for the first time in over 40 years there was no rig drilling for oil, farm prices were in the crapper, and in general two legs of the state's economy were in bad shape. Usually oil or agriculture does well, and rarely both, but seldom both are hurting as they were when the person who wrote the article saw the little towns which depend on both for sustenance.

Of course, the pendulum has gone in the other direction, now. Housing prices have trippled in many towns, and both agriculture and oil industries and related services are riding the wave.

It is always possible to see the bust cycles as one looks back, the old homesteads or farmhouses from past booms left to sit, even the areasclaimed as "wilderness" which are go-back land, homesteads ceded back to the government in the '30s during that bust.

The next time things go south, economically, the opportunists will be there with an imported cure-all, and some folks will leave. The rest will carefully shepherd their resources, continue through the tough times, and be here when conditions improve once more.

Since the first settlers came west, and even before, it has been this way.

[Deaf Smith]

We got a female and at least one cub that come through our place in Stephens County.

They have taken a hankering for the feral piglets.

[dljordan]

“It’s “interesting” that the many state wildlife agencies seem to “consistently” deny, deny, deny cougar incidents in every one of their states (where the deadly cats were previously held to be extinct!) UNTIL they get a dead body brought in.”

I’ve had a biologist for Tennessee Wildlife argue with me that there were NO Cottenmouths in Tennessee. Go figure.