[DuckFan4ever]

Someone should have gotten a picture. How cool would it be to have a t-shirt with a picture of yourself and a cat in a death struggle that says "Someone went to Flagstaff Mountain and all I got was this stupid t-shirt".

[george76]

These attacks often happen to family groups when the younger kids race ahead of the group.

The explosion of lion, wolf, coyote, and bear populations nationwide will make this problem even worse in the years to come.

Plus the reductions and restrictions on predator hunting dilutes the opportunity for the younger predators have have a learning experience.

Many predators use to fear humans, not they they think of us as a source of food.

[battlegearboat]

Should've had a mule with them.

[Huck]

Wow. Flagstaff Mountain is not exactly a remote area, either. It's citified, as far as mountains go. I've always wanted to see a mountain lion in the wild.

[null and void]

How's the kid doing?

[Caipirabob]

Jeez. We're going to Fort Collins this summer and plan on hking in rough wilderness with my children. Best that I take precautions. Any suggestions? Keep them close, behind and carry? Should we bring them at all to the mountains?

Friggin' environmental nuts. We should feed them all to the cats. Who in their right mind fights to introduce a man-eater to areas frequented by families?!?

[RichInOC]

No! Bad kitty!

[Cold Heart]

Oregon has seen a sharp increase in the cougar population due to a law that banned sport cougar hunting with dogs.

The cougar are now becoming problematic. The state will now HIRE professional hunters, with dogs, to do what sportsmen paid to do previously.

The same problem has occured with bears. The state has been paying professional hunters to kill bears since the law came into affect.

[Cvengr]

IMHO, we should capture the mountain lion, train them to seek out suicide bombers, deploy them to Iraq, and take appropriate action in stealth.

[Grampa Dave]

Below are the great pictures of the pack mule killing a cougar which attacked.

http://www.blackbearheaven.com/horse-kills-cougar.htm

[jazusamo]

Thanks for the post and your comments, they're right on.

Oregon just announced they were going to start killing Cougars with wildlife officials and contract hunters because of the increase in numbers.

They have been having problems with them since an initiative was passed about 12 years ago banning hunting them with dogs. Their numbers have increased from an estimated 3,000 to over 5,000 and they want to reduce their numbers back to what they were.

The main problem has been Cougars adopting territories in populated rural areas because of the increase their numbers, they are very territorial. As they have been forced into these rural inhabitated areas, they have started killing livestock and pets. Fortunately there has been no attacks on humans but they're afraid there will be.