New Mexico Man Eaten this Week by Cougar While Skinny Dipping -- OUCH!!

I live in cougar/mt lion country and also jaguar country. I have had a close encounter with 1 jaguar and have spotted many mt lions. My boss had his pet goat grabbed literally right from his hands (was on a leash) at a rodeo a year or so ago by a mt. lion on post at the rodeo arena.

Me I always carry at least mace (prefer bear mace, but the kimber mace works well) and tell the wife the same when they are at the play grounds near the mountains on post or going to the parks off post near the mt's.

If you live in cat country you need to protect yourself. Heck even a decent knife is better than nothing.

Also, mt. lions swim and are not leary of water so even if this guy was in water and had swam farther, the cat would have just followed.
 
Yeah... what an interesting world we'd have if it were devoid of predators!:rolleyes:

Anyone advocating wiping out yet another predatory species should be permanently exiled to a barren island somewhere. :barf:
 
As Double Naught Spy pointed out. "He had some serious mental issues" maybe he wasn't allowed to own a gun for protection so even the rubber bullets wouldn't have helped
 
whenever in the Cascades east of Everett...

I'm minimally carrying a 4" .357, I'm a quiet walker (and a loner) and heard before seeing black bears. I usually exercise a reversed direction.
When I was buying a car, local dealer indicated that he hike to the Alpine area that has several lakes. He has been observed numerous occasions by cougars and three times been stalked. He carries a .45 GM.

Not being paranoid but why take chances.
 
Not being paranoid but why take chances.
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Nothing paranoid about being prepared in the wild. I would suggest to cut out the silent walking though. The best thing you can do for your own safety is be heard coming by these predators. They will usually avoid people they hear coming. You do not want to startle a bear or cougar that you do not see. If you do, chances are that gun will be worthless since our reflexes are a fraction of theirs.
 
I put the blame on hunting bans, not the lack of apex predators.
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Banning hunting eliminates one of the apex predators - us.

How effective is 9mmP against a cougar
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Probably effective enough (your results may vary :p). I was always taught to fight back against a cat with everything or anything you got - go for the face/eyes/nose/ears. A predator that is looking for food does not want to get injured, or it may not be able to survive.

Of course, the guys that this did not work for aren't around talking about it...

Or if the first time you know there is a cougar around is when it lands on your back, you are in a significantly more "challenging" situation.

I personally know 2 guys that killed them after being stalked while bowhunting and cats are my one big paranoia in the woods. I carry a .45 plus what ever I am hunting with.
 
Huh. Seems like natural selection at work here. I know its harsh to say so, but IMO it is the truth. Some humans really arent meant to live a full and happy life. IMO we have taken part of the evolutionary process out of the equation and then we are surprised when mother nature claims one of us as part of the process thats been going on for thousands of years. Lets face it, even a apex predetor like humans can be taken down every now and again. Furthermore, 10,000 years ago it would have happened daily and noone would have thought twice.
I dont venture into the wilds too often, but to do so unarmed and naked is folly beyond reason. Expect the unexpected and you will live to see another day. Same thing goes in the urban environment. Go strolling down a dark street in a bad part of town with nothing but your underoos on and see what happens. Its not rocket science people.
 
dave I am with you on fighting back.

I always carry a knife with me at the least and at least some mace when in cat country (basicly when I walk out my door down here). If I am in a place I can carry (i.e. not the national parks or monument down here) then i carry a nice colt detective snubby with 38 spl +P or a taurus 605 with 125gr gold dot 357's .

Those who don't fight back will end up as fecal matter in the litter box :D as was the case with this poor soul.
 
Large predators WERE wiped out in most of the lower 48, and we got along just fine without them.
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Uhh - except for massive overpopulation of prey species.

If you are not afraid to take your chances with wild animals, stay in your living room and watch TV. The wilderness is fantastic because it is wild.

Remember, they were here first, and we have no right to kill them all just because they cull our herd periodically. Sure, defend yourself (I prefer a .357 with 180 grain hardcast), but don't expect the world to turn the wilderness into a Nerf playland. Maybe we should put handrails on all the cliffs, too. You might lose your footing!
 
Back when I lived in Montana, I was stalked on several occasions by mountain lions, and one time had one attempt to land on me by leaping off of a short cliff and knock me off of my snowmobile! Nothing like your heart rate going through the roof in 1 second to get you to mash the throttle and make some distance! I literally did not stop for two miles at full throttle.

There is nothing quite as unnerving as that feeling of the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up, turning and seeing a mountain lion off just a bit staring at you. This feeling is truly unforgettable!

And the absolute worst was when the mountain lion was just sitting about 25 yards off watching me sidehill, with my rifle pointed at him, and I looked very quickly down to check my footing, only to look up and he was gone! O.K. where did he go! Now that was about the worst feeling that I have had in my entire lifetime.

I loved living in Montana, but do not miss the mountain lions. Very happily living in Alaska!
 
Very happily living in Alaska!
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Yeah... griz and wolves aren't nearly as worrisome as a 150 lb. cat. Chester, one of my grandcats is about 15 lbs. of absolute terror. He can flat kick my butt. Can't imagine one ten times his size! Yup... big cats are the scariest predator in my book.:eek:
 
When I was buying a car, local dealer indicated that he hike to the Alpine area that has several lakes. He has been observed numerous occasions by cougars and three times been stalked.

He observed cougars on numerous occasions - he has no idea whatsoever how many times they observed him. I guarantee you they saw him many times more than he ever saw them.

And what does he call being stalked? Seeing a cougar doesn't mean it's stalking you.

There's no way this guy was stalked three times and knew about it every time. Let's put it this way - if he knew he was stalked three times, he was in fact stalked many more times, and almost surely would have been attacked by now, long before he could report having been stalked three times with no further incident.

The dude was blowing smoke and trying to sell you a car.
 
Here in Oregon, they (mostly urban dwelling non-hunters) voted to ban hound hunting of cougars. In the few years since, cougar populations have exploded, and deer herds have dwindled and in some places almost disapeared. Gee, I wonder if there's a connection? We frequently have cougar sightings right in town, and the surrounding neighborhoods. Nobody killed -Yet.
By their nature, cats are so elusive that very few are killed without hounds, and now the state spends money to trap and kill problem animals that used to be taken by licensed hound hunters. Great system:rolleyes: that has been imposed on us rural Oregonians by the more populated urban areas. jd
 
There's no way this guy was stalked three times and knew about it every time. Let's put it this way - if he knew he was stalked three times, he was in fact stalked many more times, and almost surely would have been attacked by now, long before he could report having been stalked three times with no further incident.
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Absolutely. Cats hunt using stealth and suprise. They kill by breaking the neck of their victim, usually right at the base of the skull. Not being able to sneak up on their prey makes them very ineffective hunters.

Chances are if you spot a cat close by, it saw you long before you saw it.
 
In my opinion, he should have had a dog with him - only way to get advance warning on a cat. Even with a sidearm, these things are so stealthy - they're on you in a flash, usually no time to respond!
 
jdscholer

I have a sister in Or., she had her small dog attacked by a cat last year. The neighbors had seen it and did nothing. It took 143 stitches to close the wounds on the dog cause he faught back. I told my sis to get a gun(she hates guns) she did but some one else got the cat for attempting the same type of attack on their animal. This was about a 2 year old cat(young), basicly he was hungry and looking for an easy meal.
Some day the sheeple will figure out that hunting is a viable way of controlling the population with out the government having to spend millions of dollars every year to get the same results.
They have already proven that the birth control doesn't work(tried it in one of the eastern states but I can't remember which one). They spent a chunk of our money on that one:eek::barf:
When I venture into wild country (any where outside my house) I have at the very least a good knife on me and usually a pistol. Cats are very easy to kill a .22 will kill a cat, but as was stated before they are an ambush hunter so pay attention to your surroundings!!! JMO:D
 
Our ancestors had the right idea about pacifying an area by killing off the large predators.
What exactly is the point of maintaining species like the the cougar in the lower 48? It's not even close to being threatened let alone endangered when you take the Canadian and South American populations into account.
Just another hare-brained idea cooked up by the environmentalists.
Time to reintroduce a bounty on these dangerous pests and eliminate them IMO.
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Its scary to be reminded that sometimes we are not God and master of all that lives and breathes. But there are those of us who prefer that there be animals of this type left on the face of the Earth. Unchecked? No, their populations need to be controlled...Nature's predator/prey balance doesn't always work in today's world. But eliminated? Absolutely not. You are in so much more proportionate danger from cars, slips and falls, sickness, lightning, human predators, etc. as to make this threat infinitessimal. Still, when it happens, it affects us in a primal way and we want to eliminate the threat.

Take appropriate precautions in appropriate areas, and understand the behaviors of dangerous animals if they are in your area. We can be smarter, and minimize the threat, w/o wiping them from the face of the planet.
 
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