Cougar scat near the barn!

[Looking4new]

Auburn Lake Trails near Cool, CA is a 900 homesite gated community catering primarily to equestrian zoned properties with facilities for various horsemanship events. The property's surrounding rugged Serria foothill area provides excellent and mostly remote riding trails.
The 80lb female cougar was soon found and shot and upon a laboratory examination it was determined that the animal had given birth to two cubs within the past four to six weeks.
With that information, search teams went back into the area and found one cub which was rescued and turned over to authorities for raising and future release.

They should have shot the cub, too. Although they may be pretty to look at, they still have the capability to kill livestock and people.
If anybody thinks for one minute that raising a cub will endear it to people, they watch way too much TV. If it is raised by people it will have absolutely no fear of man. It will relate man to food. Hence another killer released back in the wild to do exactly what its' mother did.

 

[nickel plate]

They should have shot the cub, too. Although they may be pretty to look at, they still have the capability to kill livestock and people.
If anybody thinks for one minute that raising a cub will endear it to people, they watch way too much TV. If it is raised by people it will have absolutely no fear of man. It will relate man to food. Hence another killer released back in the wild to do exactly what its' mother did.

I looked further into this story after reading your post as hand raising and then releasing a cougar back into the wild as you pointed out just didn't seem right. Turns out the cougar cub now named "Willow" as he was found in a patch of willows was given over to the Folsom city zoo, not too far from where he was captured. I don't want to go any further with this research but I did locate an article dated 12/12/2002 that he was a healthy 120lbs and still in captivity at that zoo.

 

[CurlyDave]

CurlyDave summed up the Southern Oregon mentality about cougars: Shoot, Shovel, & Shut-up...

Marcus

Let me clarify a little. Every year I buy a "Sports Pac" hunting/fishing license. For 2010 it was $165. This gets me a hunting license and a tag for every legal species in OR, plus a fishing license. It is a great bargain and the money all goes for game management.

Cougar season opens Jan 1, and continues to December 31. If you fill your tag, you can purchase a second one.

There is no reason to Shovel and Shut up, although you do have to carve the reproductive tract out of any female cougar killed and give it to the department of fish & wildlife.

 

[TBarD]

My sister up in South Dakota sent me some picture of a road-kill mountain lion they had up there - look at the size of this guy! His paw is the size of your head (well mine anyway :laughing.

 

[KYErik]

My sister up in South Dakota sent me some picture of a road-kill mountain lion they had up there - look at the size of this guy! His paw is the size of your head (well mine anyway :laughing.

TBarD- I fell for that pic too. The same pic was of a mountain lion killed in IL near where I grew up (or at least that is what I believed for a few days).

Snopes reveals that it was a road kill, but was from Arizona: snopes.com: Arizona Mountain Lion

 

[TBarD]

TBarD- I fell for that pic too. The same pic was of a mountain lion killed in IL near where I grew up (or at least that is what I believed for a few days).

Snopes reveals that it was a road kill, but was from Arizona: snopes.com: Arizona Mountain Lion

Now that is one lion that really got around! But northern AZ is not far from SW Colorado - old Ben Lilly might have ranged that far back when he was tracking lions.

 

[nickel plate]

They should have shot the cub, too.

I disagree with your statement. Young natural specie offspring of defensive or agressive adult parents need to be preserved in compounds, acres of land or gallons of water. Gene pool. Your statement to "shoot the cub" bothers me.