Cougar?
03-14-2008, 11:42 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: May 2006
Location:
Posts: 6
Cougar?
hello i live in texas. i live in the city and own a ranch about 2 hours away from the city. its a low fence but we have some pretrty nice bucks. about one week ago it snowed about six inches, and the guy who looks after our ranch found an eight point buck dead in the snow. he wasn't sure if its neck had been bitten, like most mountain lions do, but had a large chunk taken out of its hindquarters. this took place sometime during the night before, and the spot where they found him dead is kind of in an open clearing at the top of a hill. the hill has many stones and crevices, possible mountain lion den, but before this i have gone hiking through the part of the hill and have never seen anything.
anyways back to the deer. there was some blood around it, but not enough to follow a trail and since there was snow, there were prints. my first question had been if it were a coyote, but the prints did not have nails that showed, and they appeared to curve in, also this was a 170+ pound deer, and a coyote is not likely to have taken him down on its own. if you do think it was a cougar, any tips on how to track it? in the ranch we have actually have had 3 encounters with a lion: the first year i owned it, like five years ago, it walked across the path in the front of the house, the second was when my father spotted it looking out over the edge of a hill on opening morning of hunting season, but he missed the shot, and the final time was one night when the guy watching our ranch and his wife saw it run across the road in the middle of the night at about 50 yards away 3 or 4 years ago. the land is about 800 acres
anyways back to the deer. there was some blood around it, but not enough to follow a trail and since there was snow, there were prints. my first question had been if it were a coyote, but the prints did not have nails that showed, and they appeared to curve in, also this was a 170+ pound deer, and a coyote is not likely to have taken him down on its own. if you do think it was a cougar, any tips on how to track it? in the ranch we have actually have had 3 encounters with a lion: the first year i owned it, like five years ago, it walked across the path in the front of the house, the second was when my father spotted it looking out over the edge of a hill on opening morning of hunting season, but he missed the shot, and the final time was one night when the guy watching our ranch and his wife saw it run across the road in the middle of the night at about 50 yards away 3 or 4 years ago. the land is about 800 acres
03-14-2008, 07:11 PM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location:
Posts: 3,516
RE: Cougar?
Years back my Grandfather owned 5,000 acres. A mountian lion was killing mule deer and calves. The mountian lion was stalked and killed. The deer population came back to what is was in about three years.
I would kill the mountian lion any legal possible way. Hounds might be the best way if legal. Contact the Cattle Man's Assoiation, and your Game & Fish Dept. to start. Good luck.
I would kill the mountian lion any legal possible way. Hounds might be the best way if legal. Contact the Cattle Man's Assoiation, and your Game & Fish Dept. to start. Good luck.
