Posted on 05/12/2008 1:18:00 PM PDT by george76
The video shot in Jack Foerschler’s barn shows his flock of sheep lying quietly in the dark...
The flock seems peaceful, until the animals are suddenly startled. A nanosecond later, a blur leaps into the screen and tackles one of the sheep. The ewe is able to escape momentarily, jumping up from the creature’s clutches, running to the viewer’s left. But the invader is faster. It bounds to its feet and extends a claw toward its fleeing prey.
The viewer can see its massive claws, slender muscular body and distinctively long tail.
The culprit that killed four ewes, a ram and seven lambs ...
“I’ve never had a mountain lion kill sheep,” Foerschler said this week, relieved that his suspicion that someone had shot his animals was wrong. “I’ve lost one to a coyote, lots to dogs, but never to a lion or a bullet. I can say now, never a bullet.”
Kevin Lansford, predator biologist and staff specialist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said there are an estimated 2,500 mountain lions statewide. Solitary creatures, the females weigh between 85 and 100 pounds. Males weigh between 130 to 170 pounds. From nose to tip of tail they can be anywhere from six to seven feet long, said Lansford.
And their behavior when going after prey mimics no other animal.
“Their power and prowess and their ability to stalk and hunt large animals is amazing,” .
It’s not uncommon for someone to confuse a lion kill with a gunshot wound,
(Excerpt) Read more at nevadaappeal.com ...
.
The story makes more sense when you look at the pictures with the article (from the video). These sheep weren’t inside a barn, they were in an outdoor pen adjacent to a barn. I was wondering how the mountain lion got into the barn, since presumably a rancher who’d already lost several sheep would close and secure the barn door if his sheep were insie for the night.
PETA should protest the mountain lion’s actions. How horrible, to rip a living animal apart limb from limb, and consume it raw.
These critters have got to be killed, because not only does it mean that this mountain lion has “keyed in on livestock,” it means that it’s lost its fear of humans, or it would never have been that close.
Did you know that in the ancient Middle East (and, actually, even in more modern sheep-raising parts of Europe such as Spain), the shepherd would sleep across the threshold to the sheep-pen? This prevented the sheep from going out and anything else from coming in. Hence Jesus’ words, “I am the gate of the sheep...”
Global Warming to blame?
The first ( top ) video looks like the inside of a barn.
Still, he should have closed the barn door ?
Mountain lions doing the jobs the butcher does not want to do (pass the mint jelly, please....)
At least the NDW had enough sense not to relocate it.
I wonder if having a donkey or 2 onsite would have prevented a mountain lion from getting into the pen area like it did.
My first thought viewing that was, “Boy, that’s a puny mounatin lion.”
That explains it!
Vince Foster was killed by a mountain lion!
For me, a total urbanite, it seems to be strange behavior in that the lion killed far beyond what one would think for hunger needs. Maybe because they were penned up but still strange (I wonder if it was all of the penned sheep?). There is also the fact (though PETA would deny it probably) a blood-lust, joy in the ability to do something, that does NOT solely exist for humans.
Forget that. Put a mountain ram in that pen and see how long the lion keeps coming back.
It’s Bush’s fault.
...there’s a good reason that mountain lions were almost wiped out in this country....they’re dangerous....last month one was shot in Chicago...down the way from Wrigley Field where the Cubs and Reds were playing...DNA showed the lion was from the Black Hills of S.D....that cat traveled some 900 miles and ended up getting shot by a cop in an alley.
Put a picture of Hillary in the sheep pen.
More likely that PETA would proteste the evil farmer/rancher for keeping animals in closed quarters.
They do not need to be wiped out just hunted like other species that need controlling.
One would think that after a while the cat would learn that sheep always taste like sheep and go find someone who has goats or something better.
Donkeys are fantastic watch-animals. Hearing a burro “go off” in the middle of the night - which they do even if a human being they know steps outside to view the night sky - is unforgettable and nobody who wasn’t stone deaf could sleep through it!
“I wonder if having a donkey or 2 onsite would have prevented a mountain lion from getting into the pen area like it did.”
....you really almost need dogs to handle a cat...say a couple of Great Pyranees that will stand and fight...hounds can do the job but are bad to run off if they’re not penned up in a kennel.
Animals go on killing rampages from time to time. Think about it: If you’ve ever owned a male cat, there will be periods where he inexplicably got pissy and attcked things at random. This is leftover programming from being a wild animal. Reference the story of The Ghost & The Darkness - two man-eating lions kill dozens of people for God only knows what reason. They just felt like it.
“The lion trapped near Foerschler’s farm was a male and weighed about 130 pounds. Because the Nevada Department of Wildlife does not allow for the relocation of mountain lions, the animal was killed.
“If that lion has already keyed in on livestock, there’s not really any place to take it where it won’t be a disruption,” Lansford said.”
WRONG. Ship it to a PETA convention!!!!
Try wrasslin’ one, pilgrim!!
How do they know the Chicago mtn lion was a wild one who wandered there, and not a captive one released there?
If it was a Mexican lion, probably so.
True.
Most idiots who keep Mountain Lions as “pets” have them defanged and declawed.
Some idiots are more idiotic than others, for example someone for whom a pit bull just isn’t macho enough.
About 20 years ago I talked to a rancher and his wife that had both cattle and sheep. They had been the last of the ranchers in the area near Medicine Bow, Wyoming that raised sheep.
One night they lost 27 sheep out of 200 to a group of coyotes.
Only a small number of the sleep had been killed for food, the rest were part of a killing spree.
The remaining sheep were shipped to market the next day.
That marked the end of their flock of sheep.
Pfft. I’ve scared away lions bigger than that by screaming at them. That one is pretty small, unless the sheep are 5 feet tall at the shoulder.
“That one is pretty small, unless the sheep are 5 feet tall at the shoulder.”
Maybe the sheep were registered Democrats. Average height of a Democrat voter is what? 5’ 8”? At least for the Democrats that are not six feet under.
Scientists say South Dakota is a likely source for a mountain lion that was killed this week in Chicago after what would be a record 900-mile journey from the Black Hills.
More concrete evidence of the lion’s travels may lie in a piece of its muscle that Illinois officials will send to a DNA lab in Montana.
The Chicago Tribune estimated a 1,000-mile trek counting a swing through Wisconsin... beats the standing record of 663 miles a Black Hills lion wandered before a train struck and killed it in Oklahoma
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2001669/posts?page=40#40
[Insert giggling like a schoolgirl here]
...they sent the DNA out to the Black Hills to run it thru their lab and data base....same thing with the lion hit by a train last year in Oklahoma....that one had traveled 700 miles....lot of strange things are happening with wild life these days...there are confirmed populations of wild turkeys in every county in North Carolina....I couldn’t say that just 25 years ago...
No sheep dog?
Yummmm... Baby Lamb-chops.
Yep, we’ve got a gelded miniature donkey (he’s above breeding size) that is the best watch dog we’ve ever had. We do have two Belgian Malinois, that are great guard dogs, but they keep quiet until you are right on top of them. But the donkey is our early warning system. We even had a small brush fire one night (started by lightning) and he even warned us of that.
In Viet Nam water buffaloes protect livestock from tigers.
I think out of all the critters I see out in the woods that can kill me without breaking a sweat mountain lions are the ones that scare me. Any others chances are I’ll see them and have warning enough to shoot them first....mountain lions probably already be pretty well mauled before you know it’s there.
At the Cabela's in North Reno, they have a taxidermized mountain lion on display that was killed in the Virginia Mountains behind my house. It's bigger than the taxidermized timber wolf mounted on display just below it. I was in shock when I saw it.
I've seen mountain lions in SoCal that were half the size of this Nevada animal and had thought that mountain lions were mountain lions and didn't know that there were several types that can dwarf the SoCal lions I'm more familiar with. That trophy lion on display at Cabela's is damn near African-sized and it just startled the Hell out of me knowing that they could be coming down our road looking for a meal. You're gonna need a lot of gun to take one down.
I carry a Ruger Redhawk in .44 Magnum with Garrett 330-grain +P 'Hammerhead' hard cast loads when I go out in the wilderness behind our property. If that won't drop the biggest mountain lion on the planet, I don't know what will.
Total Urbanite? Kidding right?
You mean you actually never built a fire (without a prepackaged “log” thingy), killed something actually alive to eat it, peeed in the woods etc?
Really? You gotta move before you lose all perspective...
Seriously.
God Bless the poor Urbanites!
Molon Labe
Bummer, this is not what I want to see right now....
5:30 a.m. last Thursday our dog started barking. We shushed her and then, since one of our windows was open, I asked Mr G what was the sound we were hearing. It went on for quite a while and then I opened a window on the other side of the room to listen. What I heard was about 300 feet away, right behind our office. (confirmed by the dog’s hackles going straight up when she and Mr G walked up there later)
There were 2 parts to the sound, one of which I recognized....
you got it, it was a cougar. We have a friend who used to raise them, so I have heard them make a “chuff” sound in greeting. I got on line and searched cougar sounds and found one very like what we heard, combined with the “chuff”.
The next part of the puzzle is that our neighbor down the hill saw one last year in the tall grass next to his house. He was too busy shooing his grandkids into the house to take a picture of it with the camera that was hanging around his neck.
Add to that another neighbor who listened to the sound I sent him and said “Oh yeah, I have heard that before, but it sounded a ways south of us.”
As I said, bummer.
NDOW has finally gotten the message through to the relocated Californians that most all the lion habitat in Nevada is already occupied by a lion. If you re-locate a lion to other suitable habitat in Nevada, there’s going to be a dead lion sooner or later — the newly introduced or the old-timer, take your choice.
I like hound dogs, setters, spaniels and German Shepherds myself.
Mountain lions belong in the woods or in the sights of a good rifle.
OK, lemme give you a tip as a guy who has hunted a LOT in the high mountains of Nevada:
Should you ever be hiking/camping/hunting/fishing/whatever in the high mountains, be VERY aware of what is off to your sides and at your back. Turn around suddenly every 50 to 100 yards or so. Some times, you will see something disappear in a flash behind you - that will likely have been a cat when you’re above 7,500’ on a rocky hillside.
I have neighbors who are big, big men (6’4” and all of 250lbs - big guys) be stalked by cats that weighed less than these guys. As soon as they turn around, the cat freezes and then bolts - but the cat was stalking these guys and got within 20 yards. Cat kill by stealth and surprise - regardless of whether they’re going to win the fight or eat on you.
Something to keep in mind...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
