Cougars

[Lallans]

Today real cougars (not the human variety) enter my life with the official announcement that the big cats have been confirmed as having returned to Ontario. I spend a lot of time in the outdoors here, where even a decade back we were confident in the Farley Mowat-inspired notion that large predators such as bears and wolves (and by association, cougars) don't attack humans but events have proved that gentleman wrong. Even the coyotes who moved in in the last 25 years or so have taken a liking to menacing smaller humans, most cases going unreported if no blood was spilled. And now we have cougars... these are still really rare here and seem harder to find than ivory billed woodpeckers, even for the government professionals, but I've read accounts indicating that they are becoming increasingly troublesome to people out west- what might we expect when cougars are fully restored to our eastern habitats? Should I start shopping for a rearview mirror for hiking? A backwards walking dog?

[BoldHighlander]

Get yourself a big walking stick

We haven't had a big cat sighting in town for about 3 or 4 years now, but with the urban growth of the area, & the ban on hound hunting, the cougar population mushroomed (which accounted for them moving into the outskirts of town).
At one point we had one living on Sehome Hill, which is a wooded green space surrounded by a highly urban neighborhood, the college, & a high school!

It seemed they lost their fear of man & dogs around here, and at a popular lake & park about 7 years ago, two women on a nature walk were attacked by a big cat. The only thing that kept it from doing serious damage was one woman's walking staff keeping it just out of reach! When my daughter's grade school class had a field trip there, I'd go along & walk the trail in the back of the pack, watching both for stragglers and the brush & trees. Better to be safe than sorry

The deer population in the area has mushroomed too (real road hazards), so this might account for the decline in local cougar sightings (they're not hunting further out for chow). I don't know...

Anyhow, unless you have the factors we had here, you'll probably be alright. Usually big cats are very solitary & really don't like human contact.
I remember as a kid (about 11 or 12 yrs old) while spending the summer at my grandfather's farm in the SW part of this state, we were going up into the woods to check the spring level where the communities water was piped in from. While trudging up the hillside, we had a big cat (close but unseen) "scream" at us....liked to scare me half to death (and just as the old tales say, it did sound like a woman's scream). My grandfather, a man of the woods (a life long hunter & logger, both in the Ozarks & here in Washington state), paused, said "its just a cougar, probably warning us off from a fresh kill", and he just continued on his way.
We never did see that big cat, nor were troubled by it on the way back down.
I'll never forget that close encounter.

(Sorry for the long winded response, I got on a roll )

[Lallans]

Get yourself a big walking stick

We haven't had a big cat sighting in town for about 3 or 4 years now, but with the urban growth of the area, & the ban on hound hunting, the cougar population mushroomed (which accounted for them moving into the outskirts of town).
At one point we had one living on Sehome Hill, which is a wooded green space surrounded by a highly urban neighborhood, the college, & a high school!

It seemed they lost their fear of man & dogs around here, and at a popular lake & park about 7 years ago, two women on a nature walk were attacked by a big cat. The only thing that kept it from doing serious damage was one woman's walking staff keeping it just out of reach! When my daughter's grade school class had a field trip there, I'd go along & walk the trail in the back of the pack, watching both for stragglers and the brush & trees. Better to be safe than sorry

The deer population in the area has mushroomed too (real road hazards), so this might account for the decline in local cougar sightings (they're not hunting further out for chow). I don't know...

Anyhow, unless you have the factors we had here, you'll probably be alright. Usually big cats are very solitary & really don't like human contact.
I remember as a kid (about 11 or 12 yrs old) while spending the summer at my grandfather's farm in the SW part of this state, we were going up into the woods to check the spring level where the communities water was piped in from. While trudging up the hillside, we had a big cat (close but unseen) "scream" at us....liked to scare me half to death (and just as the old tales say, it did sound like a woman's scream). My grandfather, a man of the woods (a life long hunter & logger, both in the Ozarks & here in Washington state), paused, said "its just a cougar, probably warning us off from a fresh kill", and he just continued on his way.
We never did see that big cat, nor were troubled by it on the way back down.
I'll never forget that close encounter.

(Sorry for the long winded response, I got on a roll )

I generally do carry a big stick, for balance, for beating off the mosquitos found here, and against the possibility of rabid fox attacks- I see those poor creatures occasionally but so far have been lucky in that they weren't in the biting phase or whatever it is. I have other 'sticks' that carry things like 00 buck, but that is mostly discouraged in Ontario these days. Anyway the encouraging news is that larger humans do seem to be immune from most wildlife-related problems, so clearly I should continue working hard to gain weight

[BoldHighlander]

I generally do carry a big stick, for balance, for beating off the mosquitos found here,

Do they get that big there?!
(I'm picturing an old Sci-Fi B-movie )

and against the possibility of rabid fox attacks- I see those poor creatures occasionally but so far have been lucky in that they weren't in the biting phase or whatever it is.

Wow! I never realized that about them, though I read about a recent fox-biting attack on a couple of children (in their house) in England....

I have other 'sticks' that carry things like 00 buck,

You just brought to mind a metal band I listened to back in the early 80's called Krokus. They had a song entitled "The Long Stick Goes Boom"

Anyway the encouraging news is that larger humans do seem to be immune from most wildlife-related problems, so clearly I should continue working hard to gain weight

I'll give you some of mine (I need to lose about 20 lbs)

[sydnie7]

Fair amount of cougar aka mountain lion problems in Southern California as the population pushes into "their" foothill territory. Read an interesting article about how the typical behavior of a jogger can attract a cat attack -- the movement gets the cat interested, then when the jogger stops to tie a shoe, stretch, etc. the person bending down makes them a more attractively sized target. Bam!

So. . . gain weight (check), stop jogging (check), and carry that big stick I got from Kilted Carver (check). I'm good!

[Vegan Scot]

I know full well what a minority I am here on X Marks. Perhaps all the more reason for me to voice my opinion from within the fray. Two quotes immediately sprang to mind while reading through this thread, both from the gadfly and defender of the American West, Edward Abbey.

"The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow ****, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West."

"We need coyotes more than we need, let us say, more people, of whom we already have an extravagant surplus, or more domesticated dogs, which in all fairness could and should be ground up into hamburger and used as emergency coyote food, to raise their spirits and perhaps improve the tenor of their predawn howling."

Perhaps the same could and should be said of cougars...

[dfmacliam]

Cougars are seen around here in Texas too, and we are having a renewed jaguar population, though infrequently seen. The Mexican Lobo (wolf) was once thought to be nearly extinct, are being reintroduced to the wilds...

I fancy myself as an outdoorsman, and I am glad nature is doing it's part in making these comebacks, though it does have it's price on unsuspecting people and pets.

[xman]

Ecology,

1 the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

• (human ecology)
the study of the interaction of people with their environment.

[Lallans]

Do they get that big there?!
(I'm picturing an old Sci-Fi B-movie )

{snip}

I should have put a smiley face after that but upon reflection decided it was more true without.

I know full well what a minority I am here on X Marks. Perhaps all the more reason for me to voice my opinion from within the fray. Two quotes immediately sprang to mind while reading through this thread, both from the gadfly and defender of the American West, Edward Abbey.

"The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow ****, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West."

"We need coyotes more than we need, let us say, more people, of whom we already have an extravagant surplus, or more domesticated dogs, which in all fairness could and should be ground up into hamburger and used as emergency coyote food, to raise their spirits and perhaps improve the tenor of their predawn howling."

Perhaps the same could and should be said of cougars...

Hey, I'm a Buddhist and on highest principle am against killing anything- but I'm also a country boy and am even more against things killing and eating my fellow humans. This "let's leave the countryside to the animals" idea perhaps looks well and even beautiful from inside city limits but it might be a good idea to, as the saying goes, consider where your food comes from. And there is no reason people and predators can't co-exist in the same area, but I've decided that the sad truth of the matter is that if they go unmenaced, the predators that once learned to avoid humans start exploring the idea of eating us, and eventually do so. There was no such animal problem as is seen at present when I was a kid and anything considered dangerous was shot on sight by a part of the population... the woman whose daughter was too good to fight back and was killed by coyotes in Nova Scotia asked that the same coyotes just be left alone to continue their "normal behaviour" (as she thought) but if her wishes were put into practice she was a greater danger to humanity than 1000 coyotes. Nature has rules, and standing still to get eaten is not one of them- not even the Buddha would have said that.

[wildrover]

This "let's leave the countryside to the animals" idea perhaps looks well and even beautiful from inside city limits

I've always felt that the city should administer only the city, and the country likewise...the two mindsets and lifestyles are more often at odds than in agreement.

And there is no reason people and predators can't co-exist in the same area, but I've decided that the sad truth of the matter is that if they go unmenaced, the predators that once learned to avoid humans start exploring the idea of eating us, and eventually do so.

Quite right. Posted in my neighborhood are signs instructing the general public to be aggressive toward curious coyotes and foxes, as both will hunt cats, small dogs, small children, and in some cases adults. Being crazier (aggressive and proactive) than the animal is sometimes just as necessary as being smarter (avoidance) or better prepared (reactive).

the woman whose daughter was too good to fight back and was killed by coyotes in Nova Scotia asked that the same coyotes just be left alone to continue their "normal behaviour" (as she thought) but if her wishes were put into practice she was a greater danger to humanity than 1000 coyotes.

Yeah, we have those people here, too. At least it's a confirmation that we're all human, I suppose. Boulder is overflowing with "bubble people" who hold romantically idealized notions of The Outdoors.

Nature has rules, and standing still to get eaten is not one of them- not even the Buddha would have said that.

Quite right.