[AT] Re New things was: The last question I had on my list for December. (OT

Indiana Robinson robinson46176 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 2 13:44:54 PST 2010


On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Bob McNitt <nysports at frontiernet.net> wrote:
> Ed -
>
> In my 30+ years as an outdoor writer and magazine editor, the changes
> that occurred in that short span in nature still amaze me. Our variety
> of coyotes have gotten increasingly more brazen and can now be seen in
> villages and even small cities, where they prey on cats, small dogs and
> anything else that's readily available. When mowing hay, several will
> appear in the field and follow the tractor, as they catch and feed on
> mice and young cottontail rabbits that are flushed or exposed by the
> mowing. A few years ago I photographed tracks in the snow of a large
> male mountain lion that a friend had seen and tipped me off to. The
> wildlife biologists I showed the photos to grudgingly admitted it was a
> large male puma, but stopped short of admitting it "could be a wild
> one." SOP answer is these big cats are domestic "escapees." Must be a
> lot of people have mountain lions for pets and then let them go when
> they get too big. A friend who's a NYS Trooper had a pair cross in front
> of her patrol car, but was told by DEC they were just large coyotes
> whose tails were wet that made them "look like cats."
> Bob
>
> On 1/2/2010 2:05 PM, edchainsaw at aol.com wrote:
>> We here have  coyotes and have for  30yrs  or  so--   they are a big help
>> fighting off the ground hogs on the  river--  but they just can't keep  up
>> with the beavers (not that I  think they try much)   we've not had much
>> livestock  loss  either   now my cousins have lost a  goat  and another's  dog
>> got in a fight  with some.    Now what does bother  me is  we have  neighbors
>> that think the  coyote  needs  eliminated  and  hired  guys to come onto
>> our property and   shoot them...    that's  stepping over the line
>>
>> he here also have   'big'  cats..  I saw a  black  one  several years back
>> , so has my uncle and  a friend  ( 3  witnessess)    and  this spring   our
>>    helper  who knows tracks  saw the   tracks...     again in our river
>> bottom area .
>>
=================================================




Very interesting... I mostly just kept quiet about my "big cat" siting
at least about 5 or 6 years ago.
I was working in the fields north of the house and had been most of
the week. One thing that made it kind of funny was that I had been
watching a big old black tomcat (pretty much of a beast himself), that
belonged to one of the neighbors hunting every day along the edge of
the fields. That field butts up against an old unused interurban
trolley grade that runs along side of the railroad. It is all wooded
except the power company and I keep that old grade sprayed and it is
all grass. I had got to watching for that old tom to show up and when
I saw the big cat my first reaction was, "Hey, there he is". Then I
did a double take and then a third. This all black cat was "huge". The
first thing I think I noticed was how long and thick his tail was and
how he carried the last 2/3rds of it almost parallel to the ground and
it didn't move around. Any of you that spend long hours out in the
field on a tractor knows how deer, coyotes and other wild life adapt
to seeing and hearing the tractor (especially a cab tractor) and after
an hour or so they just ignore it. I got to watch him (or her) hunt
for quite a while. Finally I drove across the field at an angle to see
how close I could get. I got to within maybe 60 or 70 yards of it and
it decided to go over the top of the grade. I never saw it again...
About a month later a report came out in the local paper about a
fellow that lives maybe 8 miles south west of here who was keeping a
big batch of big cats. Not just American mountain lions, panthers and
bobcats but also fully grown African lions and full grown tigers. Pen
after pen of them, all without proper permits. Some of his neighbors
had complained because his cages and fences were just an absolute mess
and just piecemeal stuff out of bits and pieces and baling wire. By
the time the dust settled the DNR had confiscated all but a couple of
his cats and pretty much clamped a lid on any more ever coming there.
He swore that none of his cats had ever gotten out and if I was facing
the same charges and fines he was I would have said the same thing...
:-) Some of his neighbors did say that he had a couple of escapes but
caught them soon.
I do believe to this day that the cat I saw could have very well been
an escapee of his that was unreported for obvious reasons...
On a possible sad note, I never saw that old black tom again either...
Maybe the big cat's scent scared him off or maybe he was lunch. :-)

-- 
Have you hugged your horses today?

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com




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