Mountain Lions

[Keith Zimmerman]

Just wondering who has seen one in person while hunting.  And the story behind it.  I dont mean lion hunting.  I mean elk or deer hunting.

[ChuckC]

The group has seen several over the years in middle Colorado while elk hunting.  Two were relatively close encounters, a couple more were a bit further on, but in each the cat was difinate.

ChuckC

[Zbone]

I stopped at a local establishment in Pine Colorado once and as I walked in, there was high excitement in the air for a guess a big one had just walked by heading down the street... Missed it by a few seconds... This was during broad daylight, by the way...

[Dorado]

I have. I was out hog hunting and was glassing a nearby waterhole seeing if the hogs were there. Spotted a mountain lion taking a drink. Watched it for a while before it slunk back into the brush. Funny, that big cat walked into the brush like it was walking in a park, and I didn't see a leaf move. It was like it vaporized into the greenery. This was near dusk, I'm guessing I had another half hour of good light left.

[Stump73]

Ive seen one at night crossing the road. A cougar  has been killing some friends of ours sheep. Got a picture of it on game camera.  But ky wildlife say that we dont have any around here.  

[Dave Pagel]

I cow called one in on my brother while elk hunting southeast of Jackson Hole.  It was under 15 yards at one point.

D.P.

[Uncle Buck]

why do so many eastern states' DNRs deny they have any cougars despite lots of sightings and trail cam photos? Just wonderin'

I was deer/turkey hunting on a hill side with shrub height, 10 to 20 feet, cedars. I heard a turkey flock, they were making a lot of noise. suddenly, they all took to the air about 70 yards from me.  A lion took a flying leap, rising out of the cedars, swiping at one and coming up just short. That explained the covered piles of turkey feathers that I found on the hillside.

[Sam McMichael]

I have been told by DNR people that they have denied then for monetary reasons. If they are acknowledged as being here, money and human resources would be required to study and manage them. I don't know how accurate this is, though.

[recurvericky]

When I lived in eastern NC, I saw two cougars. One walking across a field for about 5 minutes and the other crossing a logging road.

[John Krause]

I saw one two days in a row while hunting on the King Ranch down in Texas with Jeff Massie. This was about 15+ years ago.

We were hog and javie hunting and had corned some roads. Two days in a row on the same sendero  I watched one about 150 or so yds away cross the road and walk along it.

I got a good look at it with and without binocs. No mistaking the tail swishing around and curled up at the end.

[Roadkill]

Had one about 50 yards away, just moving through.  There are many around here, but are seldom seen

Not long ago there was a complaint about a cougar near Rock Valley Iowa. The game wardens went out and shot it. That was the third killed and reported being killed in our county.  We found a nasty pile of cougar scat the other day scouting. I looked on line just to make sure and it most definitely was just that..   https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3156/2463385712_34fc6b30dd_z.jpg

[Gen273]

   

[SteveB]

Originally posted by Uncle Buck:
why do so many eastern states' DNRs deny they have any cougars despite lots of sightings and trail cam photos? Just wonderin'

Sightings are notoriously unreliable - and we seem to have more of them in the NE than in states out west where they hunt them.

Also heard of dozens if not hundreds of alleged picture's. No one has ever posted one that didn't turn out to be an internet picture claimed to be from every state in the country.

[mountain lion]

I see one every time I look in the mirror! Lol I seen one one evening while I was hunting a field edge. It walked between me and my way to the truck and it was getting dark. I was younger then so let's just say my imagination got the best of me and halfway back to the truck I was a nervous wreck!!! Lol

[Steve O]

I've only seen one in the wild.  It was in Colorado sheep hunting. Been trying to get close to one for the last two Decembers in Montana with absolutely no luck.

I have read that cougars run a huge amount of terrain. The cougar this year was seen repeatedly near the same location. The ones that were shot by a farmer just west of here a couple of years back, could very well have been the sightings we had 40 miles from where they were killed. Hopefully, the one set of tracks that I saw two years ago and the scat pile we found will be the only time that one will be where we hunt. It is difficult to take that two mile hike back to the car in dark walking forward and constantly shining behind me.  A set of fresh cougar tracks or fresh scat makes one think twice about smelling like a deer. We are suppose to have bobcats around here too, I have never even seen a track of them anywhere.

[John Scifres]

I saw a Florida Panther while fishing Lake George in 1984.  There were only around 100 of them in the wild at the time (about 160 today).  It was also fishing and snagged a gar from the shore and retreated quickly into the swamp.  Very cool.

We have cougars in Indiana from time to time.  According to DNR:

   

"A mountain lion was confirmed in a rural part of Greene County northeast of Bloomfield [IN] when multiple images of an individual mountain lion were captured on camera by the Division of Fish and Wildlife on May 1, 2010. The origin of this animal is unknown
and it is likely surviving on deer that it kills."      (IN DNR Fact Sheet on Mountain Lions)  

I found lion tracks on top of my bootprints in the snow from earlier in the day while elk hunting in Idaho in 2006.  Eerie but exhilarating.

[gringol]

Some dnr statements about cougars are basically word games. Here in FL there is a breading population in south FL, but none of the females will cross the caloosahatchee river.  The males do however and range we'll into GA.  Dnr will tell you that panthers only live in S. FL, but will then confirm sightings all over the place.  A bit of semantics that are meaningful to a biologist, but seem evasive to the rest of us.