cougar trapped

[Titanium Man]

Not trying to hyjack this thread, but it seems to be trailing this way. What's with all the reports of DNR releasing rattlesnakes? What good is that anyway? Next they'll be bringing down wolves from Canada, and releasing them. Nothing good ever came of someone playing God.

How about some bear and maybe releasing some elk.

What are they going to do when the wild pigs make it farther north and really become a problem?

DNR's got way too much money. If they want to do some good, start back up the lifetime hunting licenses, and really do the outdoors some good for people.

 

[Pete]

I have found large cat tracks in the woods & field after a rain. It is over 3" wide. Maybe one day we will get a trail cam pix. We are trying to get pix over deer gut piles.

 

[45fan]

Not trying to hyjack this thread, but it seems to be trailing this way. What's with all the reports of DNR releasing rattlesnakes? What good is that anyway? Next they'll be bringing down wolves from Canada, and releasing them. Nothing good ever came of someone playing God.

How about some bear and maybe releasing some elk.

What are they going to do when the wild pigs make it farther north and really become a problem?

DNR's got way too much money. If they want to do some good, start back up the lifetime hunting licenses, and really do the outdoors some good for people.

I have heard through the grapevine of the rattlesnake releases, and have been told it is to keep the turkey population from exploding like the deer have. As much as I would love to have moose and elk in the area to hunt, I hate to think what the damage toll might be from vehicle hits.

 

[hammer24]

I tend to agree with this. There is nothing in it for them to do so. Deer are the DNR's cash cow! Why would they try to eliminate them through a secret conspiritorial introduction of a large carnivore?? The lobbying of the insurance companies when it comes to deer policy in the state is largely a myth. Does anybody think the company really loses money on deer collisions? No, that's not the way it works. They pass the costs on to us, no harm no foul.
Large carnivores like cougars, wolves, and bears can and do travel extremely long distances in order to establish new home ranges. Remember the collared wolf a few years ago that traveled from N. Wisconsin to Indiana? The fact there have been comfirmed cougar sightings in all of our neighboring states makes the existence of some in this state not all that surprising. Now that I think of it....maybe the DNR has reintroduced wolves too and that was just a cover story.

 

[Whosyer]

The wolf story is here. http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...&pg=4853,594772&dq=wolf+shot+in+indiana&hl=en

It was in 2003. The collared wolf traveled 400 miles to Indiana.

Here's a link to a story that details the 3 confirmed cougar kills in Illinois. 1 by a train down south. 1 by a bowhunter north west. And 1 shot by Chicago PD.

http://www.carmitimes.com/features/x917960481/Cougars-in-southern-Illinois-Probably-says-Gurka

 

[dswilson]

I have heard through the grapevine of the rattlesnake releases, and have been told it is to keep the turkey population from exploding like the deer have. As much as I would love to have moose and elk in the area to hunt, I hate to think what the damage toll might be from vehicle hits.

So is the theory that Rattlers will eat the eggs? Or is the Timbler rattler A poultry eater?

 

[mconley]

The Exotic Feline Resue is in the Brazil area not Bloomington.
And if anybody remembers there was a mountain lion that had
escaped from there about 3 years ago and it was never caught.

It's name was Donner and was a female, there were sightings
near a few schools about a year ago in Terre Haute which could
have been her since it is not far from Brazil.

SO there definately is activity in the state whether it is from
"Donner" or other cats being released.


Dawg

I was a firefighter in Morgan County for 6 years, and 4 years of that in a township that had a guy who had 2 mountian lions pined up right down the road from the firehouse. During my time there they had gotten out once, and one other time prior to me working there, that we know of. Rumor has it that they had a older "cub?" or whatever the babys are called, without the knowledge of the proper athourities that was never found. It was a very wierd sight comming into work one morning and watching one of them walking in the field next to the firehouse. It was even more intresting, and kinda humorous trying to tell my Officer in charge that there was a mountian lion right outside of his firehouse.

To this day, about once or twice a year, a farmer claims to see it or lose livestock due to this animal that is said to be still on the loose.

Although, these sightings seem to becomming kinda a urban legand around these parts, my sighting was real for sure, so I guess it is possible.

 

[mconley]

I seem to recall reading that they were native, but were eradicated back in the late 1800s.

I seem to recall the same... I will try to find a source.

...

Found something although found on the internet, and as we know everything on the internet is true and undisputable.

According to Indiana DNR...
The mountain lion (



Puma concolor) is known by many names, including cougar, puma, catamount and panther. Historically, mountain

lions lived throughout much of the eastern United States, including Indiana. One source – Mammals of Indiana (2009) by John O.

Whitaker Jr. and Russell E. Mumford – states that the last recorded wild mountain lion in Indiana was from DeKalb County in 1864

http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-Mountain_Lion_Information.pdf



Here is another internet source

Cougar Comeback in Midwest, WHTC Nature Almanac


also this

Cougar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

according to the above,
...The cougar was extirpated across much of its eastern North American range (with the exception of Florida) in the two centuries after European colonization, and faced grave threats in the remainder of its territory. Currently, it ranges across most western American states, the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and the Canadian Yukon Territory. There have been widely debated reports of possible recolonization of eastern North America.[54] DNA evidence has suggested its presence in eastern North America,[55] while a consolidated map of cougar sightings shows numerous reports, from the mid-western Great Plains through to Eastern Canada...

According to Mountain Lion, Cougar, Habitat, Range: The Cougar Fund

...Puma concolor is historically the widest ranging land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, aside from humans. A habitat generalist and highly-adaptive, the cougar once roamed the entire expanse of the coterminous 48 United States, up into the Canadian Yukon and south to the Chilean Patagonia in South America. As Americans, it is the animal we all most share in common, moreso than the bald eagle or the white-tailed deer....

 

[MRP2003]

There use to be similar rumors back in PA of the game commission and/or the local insurance companies buying coyotes from a farm in Texas and having them released to keep the deer population down. This was false as the population is just growing the same as the bob cat population in PA.

I talked with a guy in Jamestown NY who saw a gray wolf while he was hunting in the local area.

What I believe is that wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bears are slowly migrating to areas where they have never been lately as humans are slowly pushing them out of their current areas. I currently live in a development that was a farm previously so it is very common for us to hear the coyotes howling at night and have seen a red fox on our back pation several times.

 

[Bradsknives]

I have a hard time believing any of this story. How could you accidentally trap a cougar? The fur bearing animals that are trapped in Indiana (coons, fox, coyotes...etc.) are trapped with leg hold traps that are no bigger than a #2 and I believe if your trapping beaver with the size trap (leg hold) it takes (#3 & #4) the traps have to be set under water. So, my doubt is based on the size of a cougars paw/foot.....would it even fit in a normal size trap that is normally used for most Indiana fur bearing animals? Secondly, a cougar is a very powerful animal and highly doubt that a normal set that is used for fox, coyotes or anything else that is trapped in Indiana would even hold a cougar. Now, if the person that trapped the cougar was a aware of a cougar in the area and intentionally went after it with the right size equipment and set up...I could believe that.

I guess I would have to see pictures to believe it.

 

[jason765]

I know that 1 got loose from a wild cat rescue in either owen or clay county a few years ago and as far as I know, they never caught it.

 

[smokingman]

Why bring cougars to Indiana? I mean, aside from them being amazing animals, what's the advantage? Is this an attempt to cull the deer population? Just curious.

I was face to face with a mountain lion while playing golf in Arizona. It was no more than 20 yards behind me. My buddy's yelled for me to turn around. It was awesome! My partner started to turn and run. I grabbed and him and told him to walk backwards. If you turn your back and run, he might think your pray. He watched us and then jumped into the brush.

The beer wench on the next hole told us a mountain lion attacked an older gentleman on that same tee box 2 weeks prior. She told me I should've shot it.

Not sure they are bringing them here? In 1992 a friend of mine had one move her kittens onto her back porch.This is in southern Johnson county,one of the last lakes in Princess Lakes.They where logging some in the area and must have disturbed her and the kittens.

So she calls DNR,they say it must be a large house cat there are no cougars in Indiana.She took a few photos and with in 20 minutes the mother cougar has moved all the kittens back into the tree line.DNR never did send anyone out.

I think they have always been here in limited numbers.

 

[E'villeGunner]

Not sure if this is relevant to this story or not.

I hate cats. There, I said it! I feel much better now.

 

[kyotekilr]

I'm from Illinois and the DNR took the same mysterious stance even though several trusted farmers said they had prints. i can not imagine what someone would mistake with a cougar print besides a panther.

Maybe if people say they are seeing panther prints they will admit their are cougars

 

[ghitch75]

I seem to recall reading that they were native, but were eradicated back in the late 1800s.

oh yes they where here back then and today.....it's down toward the bottom...

Indiana's largest state park in southern Indiana, Brown County State Park

 

[Black_Wolf]

Someone had said earlier about "about what's next? Bringing down Wolves from Canada?"

That is already in the works, to be honest.

The pro wolf people have been pushing to get Wolves reintroduced in the Great Lakes regions, the New England Area, and South Appalachia

Here's a little tinfoil airplane.

Once a food base is either wiped out or controlled, You/them/the collective then have control over what utilizes that food base.

Control.

Get it?

Anti guns, anti hunting, animal rights groups, socialism, communism, ending private rights, controlling seed sources, unwanted wolves wiping out elk, deer, other large game herds out west then going after domestics.

You decide. Many others already have and not everyone of them can be crazy.

Awful lot of bad things at play here all at once to be not just a coincidence, IMHO

Again, yous decide.

 

[hammer24]

I'm from Illinois and the DNR took the same mysterious stance even though several trusted farmers said they had prints. i can not imagine what someone would mistake with a cougar print besides a panther.

Maybe if people say they are seeing panther prints they will admit their are cougars

????Panthers ARE cougars!!!

COUGAR: a large powerful tawny-brown cat (Felis concolor) formerly widespread in the Americas but now reduced in number or extinct in many areas —called also catamount, mountain lion, panther, puma

 

[Mike H]

A mountain lion is high on my hunting "to do list". Hopefully in the near future.

 

[kyotekilr]

????Panthers ARE cougars!!!

COUGAR: a large powerful tawny-brown cat (Felis concolor) formerly widespread in the Americas but now reduced in number or extinct in many areas —called also catamount, mountain lion, panther, puma

I was referring to black panthers. I should been more specific

 

[M4Madness]

I was referring to black panthers. I should been more specific

A black panther is merely a melanistic cougar or jaguar.