Leave anti freeze out there? How evil can you get. I wish I could catch you doing that. How I wish.
Fawn,
May I suggest your trying to control your anthropomorphic tendencies - your post seems to indicate they have temporarily overwhelmed your intellect.
Consider the difficulty of proving that the antifreeze was left out with the intent of poisoning a cougar. The setting of poison to control rats, and other undesirable animals, IS legal on ones own property.
Legally, morally, and ethically, the poisoning of moles and rats is not different from the poisoning of a cougar. In both cases, the human has caused the death of an animal.
The only significant difference is whether the cougar, to use the instant case, was a deliberate act.
That would be impossible, or very unlikely, to prove because of the nexus of events occurring between the Law of Unintended Consequences and the Endangered Species Act.
Since the Fifth Amendment is still in effect, unless the owner of the antifreeze (legal owner, not the thieving cougar who illegally took the antifreeze) decided to claim he did in the cougar deliberately, the benefit of the doubt (look up “presumption of innocence”) would make a conviction impossible to sustain.
What you have probably unwittingly raised is the issue of ‘mens rea’ - not a simple issue according to law school and the courts.
Ain't enviro-socialism and an activist judiciary wunnerful?