OT: Some wild life in our area

This was seen yesterday about 12 miles from our home. We don't see many of these around here.
We are on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
This was on the SC side of the GA border.
There are some huge black ones that are seen occasionally.
Richard in NW SC

Richard,
Saw pictures of a cat with two cubs near Highlands just 4 years ago. They are still around.

Really dont see many.But ther is a very 'healthy' population here in western Colorado.

I live in Central MN, just behind me is a huge block of land, no roads for several miles, lots of treed lowland in this area. There have been cat sightings in this area, and hunters have killed bobcat out of there. There have also been cougar sightings within just a few miles of my place. I worry about these cats alot, I have cattle here that I fear being attacked, chickens that would make a great dinner and a hay shed that would be the perfect place for a cat to bed down in. I've never had a problem but worry about it constantly. So much so that I really don't go out past the yard at night. No neighbor has had a problem either. Is having these cats around anything to worry about? do they ever give any trouble? or is it just a matter of leaving them alone and they will leave you alone kinda deal?

That"s a big cougar!

We have them up here at our place in Black Hawk, CO. We are having to shoot AT them to keep them away from the Alpacas. Our guard dogs also do a good job. They like laying in our composted manure pile.

Don't think I want to pet that one.

Thanks for posting the picture.

Vito

I discovered some wild life in a neighboring community. I was on second date with an interesting girl who had dropped out of college because she did not maintain a passing GPA. She really wanted to be with another friend who was the wife of a tow boat pilot. her husband was out on the boat and she wanted some social life. I rode with the girls in their car leaving mine behind. the married lady consumed three quart bottles of beer and never left her chair to go to the bathroom. On the way home the drunk driver ran over a possum and a fawn. That was a slaughter of wildlife

Have them in Va. too. My wife and I have seen 2. One was black and the other was mixed color. The first one stopped traffic for a few moments as it crossed rt 501 just north of Brookneal. The second one was about 300 yards south of our home crossing the highway.

That is a big kitty.
That would make a nice and interesting wall mount.

That kind of wildlife I can do without. I saw one here a few years ago but wasn't near that big. They are seen from time to time around here in N AR

That one looks well fed; the ones that we have are usually pretty skinny from a limited food supply. We did have one walk by our house one night when food became short in the mountains to the east of us.

Here in Canada, we only have the two legged kind of "cougars". I don't mind seeing them out stalking thier prey!

I wonder what it did a second later after the camera flashed. ("uh-oh, I've been had")

Richard, was this cat's picture taken near Abbeville SC ? There's several folks in that area that have been seeing panthers there. I live in Northern Greenville Co. several neighbors have game cam shots of one roaming around here.

Nope, it was in Oconee County above Westminster.
Richard in NW SC

If you don't see any or many, my guess is that its chipped and DNR knows right where it is all the time. Don't keep it for trophy or DNR is likely to trace it to your door through GPS. Toss the carcus in the back of the pickup, drive it over to the post office parking lot and dump it there. Wear Groucho Marx glasses and a fake nose in case anyone sees you, and paint your pickup with water colors so you can hose it off at the car wash after the getaway. Then sit back and let the DNR guy arrest the post master and act like you don't know anything about it.

Mark

Also had a hunter bag a 609 lb Black Bear near Glassy Mountain, Landrum SC.

Is that a cougar, a mountain lion, puma, catamount or panther?

That is, what do they call them in your area?

Maybe you need one of
these

picassomcp:


Yes, Yes, & No !

looks like someones pet female African lion escaped.

About 25 years ago a fellow moved into our valley that had a bunch of BIG cats that were used in movies & TV commercials. (He's no longer here.) He had Lions, Bengal Tigers, Black Panthers, & a female Mountain Lion named "Shilow". I was hired to build & assemble the cages for those cats. It was the middle of a hot summer when he brought the cats in; I noticed that the cats' water dishes were empty so I got the garden hose & started filling them up. Shilow didn't want to drink out of her water dish, she wanted to drink out of the end of the hose, so I let her, I didn't care. Later that day, after he had gotten the cats in their cages, he decided that he wanted some small, empty wooden cable spools put in each cage. When I went to put the spool in Shilow's cage she remembered me from earlier & ran over to me, stood up on her hind feet, placed her huge front paws on my shoulders & began licking my face. Her tongue felt like coarse, wet sandpaper against my face. I started stroking her cheeks, scratching her ears and the top of her head, and talking softly to her just as if she was a giant house cat. She immediately started PURRING; this was the loudest purring I've ever heard. The guy that owned the cats saw us & started screaming & yelling, stating that this was the same cat that had bitten his wife's arm off. Mind you, NONE of these cats had been de-fanged or de-clawed.

A couple of weeks later, my 2nd wife & I got to bottle-feed a half dozen 2 week old baby Bengal Tigers. At 2 weeks they're the size of a large house cat, but they're still kittens.

Just for size reference, Shilow was about the same size as the cat in the above photograph.

Doc

I read that cats have rough tongues to help remove the hide/skin from their pray before they eat it.