When I was a teenager living in CT. at the time, there was a rash of horse killings and mutilations. Most of them were small horses or ponies, and foals. The Wildlife Dept. kept saying it was a pack of feral dogs or coyotes, yet each of these horses was attacked from the top side, and raked with claws from the withers down to the rump. People kept saying "big cats", yet nothing was done, until someone shot a cougar in their back yard!
Here in MO, we have had a lot of denial from the Dept. of Conservation about things people have reported. First it was Timber Rattlers (small rattlesnake), no they don't exist here. Really?? I just shot one in my front yard. Ordinarily, I would've let it be, but he was about 25 feet from my front door, and with kids and pets, he had to go. Then there were the reports of Black Bears, sightings popping up everywhere. DoC said, "nope, haven't been any here in 150 years". Really?? Tell that to the mother and two cubs that crossed the gravel road right in front of me and my daughter when driving home from town, in broad daylight! Then they denied Cougars were here. Kind of funny now, as with the invention of the Game Cams, people in the larger towns are sending in pics left and right to the news stations! We had some kind of big cat roaming around the house here about 12 years ago. My friend, my son, and I were sitting in the front yard, about 6pm in the summer. Friend asked me did the neighbor have any cattle running in the woods? No, why? I keep hearing something grunting. We listened and stood up and turned towards the direction of the sound. This thing ROARED!! Not like a cougar or a bob cat, or even a bear, it roared like an African Lion! We all ran inside, and I grabbed the 12 ga., thinking it had to be a bear, they usually move off to loud noises. I went back out and made some noise, fired a shot in the air, and it ROARED again!! Ok, so now I'm on the phone with the Game Warden, who smuggly tells me I'm imagining it?? Yeah, right, it was a mass sound hallucination? Get your butt out here! Whatever it was, paced up and down my fence line, just inside the treeline where we never did see it. He got out here about 3 hours later, now almost dark. He had to admit finally, that it very well may have been a Lion or Tiger. "Do you know that there are several Exotic Animal Preserves around here? There are 3 right here in your vicinity. You'd be very surprised what are showing up at the local Taxidermists around here!" Oh, how comforting. I just told him that if it showed it's face in my yard, I didn't give a rat's arse if it was the last one of it's kind on the planet, it IS going to die! He just nodded his head and told me I had a right to defend myself, family, and animals from an attack. Three days later, when I got home from work, my daughter stops me from pulling up to where I usually park. I can tell she's very excited, so I stop. Right there in the dust in the driveway, about 18 feet from my front door, is a huge, retractable clawed paw print!! For whatever reason, we have not seen or heard it since. No doubt out here, someone has a Lion head hanging on their wall! Now the Dept. has reintroduced Elk to an area about 130 miles from here. They deny they are in my area, yet some mornings, I can hear a Bull Elk bugling down on the bottom pasture below my house. We never had Armadillos here either, until about 10 years ago. Now, they are as common as dead Possums on the side of the road, and one frequents my yard every year, two last year! There have also been reports of a "Black Panther" here too. I've never seen or heard a Cougar here, but I do believe they are out here. Lots of bluffs, caves, and woods, and DEER for them to survive on quite easily. I lived out west for 10 years, and have seen Cougars before. I hunted these woods for years here, and am very familiar with the sounds that should be here. That big cat, whatever it was, wasn't from this neck of the woods for sure! Think I may get a Game Cam too!
Especiallly since the kids are on their way to school and I could be enjoying a squabble-free morning.
