Mountain Lions

[LinckHillPoultry]

Share your experiences and incounters.

If you have pictures share those too.


I have yet to see one, but I know I will eventually... even though:
"There are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania"
As told by the game wardens.
We all know thats not true.

 

[Chirpy]

Thankfully I have no personal experience, although we had one about two miles from here last spring.

They are common here in the foothills and mountains. They've been seen to jump into a 6 ft. dog kennel, kill the dog (one was a Great Dane) and take the dog with them when they left. That particular case there were two dogs in the kennel (the other was a smaller breed) with the second dog yapping at the mountain lion the whole time.

This summer a couple had left the patio door to their bedroom open and woke to find a cougar in their bedroom and killing their Labrador that slept near their bed! That was a first for anyone around here... a cougar actually going into the house. They are becoming far to comfortable around people.

 

[panner123]

No pics, but we have had a number of them in the area. Year before last one was shot tow blocks from the local high school. Most people will never see one even if they live around them as I do. What they will see is their dog or animals missing. When you loss a goat or sheep you know a coon didn't take it. Either two or three years ago not to far from here a female jogger was killed by one. Maybe coolchicken can remember for it was closer to cool.

 

[ChanceRider]

Don't have pics either but we've had a couple of big cats on our property. Most recently was a deer kill in our horse pasture, before that was a mtn lion sunning itself about 10 feet from our barn. Several months ago I was hiking about 2 - 3 miles from our home and came across a very recent (probably just a couple of hours old) deer kill.

We've had mtn lions, bobcats, coyotes and foxes on our property, along with the usual possums, raccoons and snakes. We live in the Sierra foothills, gold country, and it's just a way of life. So far we haven't lost any of our "pets" to predators, but I know the day is probably coming.

 

[ChickaD]

With apologies to anyone who read this in an earlier thread, my mom saw a mountain lion (in Vermont we call them Catamount - French, maybe?) about 10 years ago, at midnight, just across the road from her house. She saw it under the street light, a huge, long cat moving smoothly along in the snow, sniffing the foot prints made earlier by our young relatives. She lived 3 miles from me, at the edge of a national forest, with mountains and wild territory. The next morning I went to see for myself the huge paw prints in the snow, as well as the thick trail in the snow where its tail dragged. Of course, we must have "imagined" the whole thing, since when she called the proper authorities, she was informed that catamounts don't exist in Vermont! He wouldn't even come out to look or to take pictures of the prints, then they have the nerve to say there's no hard evidence of their existence!

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Quote:
The "word nerd" in me just had to go look up the etymology (word history). Apparently, "catamount" comes from the phrase "cat o' mount" or, in other words, "cat of the mountain" (which isn't too far from "mountain lion"). The word "catamount" is several hundred years old.

I've never seen a catamount, and don't want to see one, in the wild.

 

[orbirdman]

while i dont have any pics, i have had a rather close encounter with one.
i was at a wake for a friend in wolf creek, OR. his parents have over 120 acres up out of town. we had all gathered the night before the wake at his parents place. large house with a wrap around deck. everyone out on the deck right at dusk including small children just sharing stories of him. the most blood curdling scream/growl went out. it was a cougar. everyone swept up all the kids and went inside while a few were handed weapons and went out with lights to see if we could catch the glint of eyes. nothing. the scary thing is where it came from i had taken a walk to up in the woods 30 minutes before we heard it. we went back out to the deck cause the amount of people inside was too much, though there was still a few of us packing

 

[nautical_bouy]

Bobcats yes, the only cougars I've heard of in PA are school mascots.

 

[chiknlady]

Didnt you have a run in with a red fox this week??? Be safe Linckhill....cause we have the second largest population of Black bear in the country too.

I saw a huge raccoon that was road kill this week--and it was right around the corner. It was the size of a sheltie,

 

[Katy]

We've had several cattle deaths over the years that were pretty suspicious, even tho our DOW says there are none in Kansas. Both my sons work in an industry where they're outside off the beaten path most of the time. They've both seen them a couple of times over the years. A friend got good shots on his game camera of one and the DOW says it's a coyote

Where we go visit friends and family in Colorado it's about as far in the back country away from people as you can get and they're having more sightings all the time. It's worrisome enough there that we don't let the younger kids go off hiking in a group by themselves like we did when our kids were young.