Posted on 04/17/2012 11:58:05 AM PDT by Red Steel
The ranchers in Indian Valley, Genesee and Taylorsville, Plumas Co. have had 7 mountain lions killed this year after they had lost pets and livestock. One after this one was killed. Alicia Knadler, Indian Valley editor, wrote the following story in the March 27 Lassen County Times.
"Blood and gore and the blank stares of his baby and adult goats greeted Genesee youth Paul Astles when he went to do his chores in the barn before school Monday, March 12.
"He discoved a full-scale slaughter of his kids and adults. (Heather Kingdon told me he lost nine head that night.) "It was a mess in there," said a fellow rancher who saw it.
"Astles is the same young man who lost several goats to mountain lions in late January.
"There were four lions together on that hunt, according to Heather Kingdon, the neighbor whose border collie puppy was snatched off the porch by a lion the day before. That lion was killed with the dog's body still in its mouth.
"Kingdon saw three lions that were probably a mother and her young, and another adult, a rather skinny female.
"She was afraid this new kill was another group hunt, unheard of in mountain lions, but a professional tracker doesn't think so. "I saw one track, a big one", she said, before preparing for yet another night hunt Tuesday, March 13.
"A lion's modus operandi is to partially bury its kill and return to feed at a later time, probably the next night. And that is exactly when the hunter met the biggest tomcat he'd ever seen in his life.
"It was a monster cat," he said.
"Estimates were that it weighed close to 200 pounds. Lions do not hunt in groups, that is one thing he and the experts at the Dept. of Fish and Game agree on.
DFG public information officer Andrew Hughan was emphatic about that and refused to validate the possibility of a group hunt by other than a mother and her young.
"There is no history, science or evidence to support that," he said. "Mountain lions are solitary animals."
"This makes the sixth mountain lion killed in Indian Valley since late January.
"The fifth one was killed in the Williams Valley area of Greenville in late February. To learn more and find safety tips, visit the DFG mountain lion information page at dfg.ca.gov/news/issues/lion .
"Heather Kingdon authored a guest post about this experience Thursday, March 15, on thebeefjar.com .
"Scroll down the page to see her story and pictures titled "Guest Post: Active Environmentalist." Heather wrote: "The few live goats that are left are locked in the barn where the mare and foals are housed. The bodies of the nine (9) dead are piled in one place, so the lion will come to a distinct area. A trick wire is placed on the top goat's carcass so when it is moved an alarm that the Tracker has, will go off. The waiting begins. At 10 p.m. the alarm is sounded. Our hound man gets his dogs and as he approaches the barn he see the lion emerge from the barn and leap over the 6'6" fence without touching, loping across the arena and heading toward the mountain. The hounds give chase and soon the lion is treed. It is huge. The biggest lion our tracker has ever seen in his many years. The lion is shot and falls, the wind is howling and the rain is here, coming down in sheets."
"Document the damage. Document the results. Document the loss. All are documented, all is legal. The depredation was a success; yet there is no celebration at the Walking G Ranch. The dead are counted and the living are being cared for by the young man, Paul, of 13 years of age who they belong to. The nannies that are alive have lost their young, the young that survived have lost their mothers. Each kid must be fed three times a day and the nannies milked, for they won't accept another's young at this point. Chores are a welcome distraction. The filling of water buckets, cleaning the stalls. Chickens to be let out. Horses fed."
Lost in Yonkers much?
NATIVE YONKERS NY FREEPER SIGN UP #22815
I knew by the time I finished cleaning up the kitchen that some nice freeper would find this and post it. :D
We’ve had our entanglements before.
Interesting side story,
When our son was a toddler, we took him to see the cats at the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound in CA. He was running around having a grand ole time looking at all the “big kitties”.
Me, I was watching what the “big kitties” were doing. The mountain lions were actually trying to stalk our son from their enclosure.
It was quite a lesson and for any who think those “big ole puddy tats” aren’t always on the lookout for an easy meal, you’re dangerously mistaken.
When our son was 2 we were at a zoo and a leopard left his rock ledge to come down closer and watch the kid toddle along. He was making a deep growling purr, thinking of the tender meat walking past.
Actually I live with hicks in NE PA these days. I still love Yonkers. City folks don’t kill animals. We find food in grocery stores.
LOL....Hi Ang!
LOL! I figure it was a “size” thing.
The cats didn’t appear the least bit interested in the bigger people, but boy, when the kids came around...
Watching their behavior was very educational, hadn’t seen it in person before so it was an eye opener.
Why do cute little kitty-cats purr, and rub their cute little heads on your ankles?
Simple ...
They're sucking up. Kissing ass. You outweigh them by an order of magnitude, could smash them to a pulp if you wanted to, and they know it.
If they were big enough to rip your throat out and eat you, they'd happily do it.
Sort of like mountain lions ...
Animal worshiper cursing Gods children, isn’t that special.
>The liberal plan is to increase the number of large predators to the point that game animal numbers drop so low that they can justify outlawing hunting. Not because they care about the deer, because they don’t. They want to get rid of all those private firearms.<
Ever notice how most “endangered” species are those that eat the same things we do? Isn’t that the weirdest coincidence?/
Yep!
HI FAWN!!! MEOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
You're talking to one of those NE PA "hicks." Born and raised.
I still love Yonkers. City folks don’t kill animals. We find food in grocery stores.
Right, you pay other people to do your dirty work.
We find food in grocery stores.
This reminds me of stupid behavior of people. Why do people have those 'Baby on Board' signs on their cars? Why advertise the goods in the car? Lots of predators out there.
Well, you went from just silly, to plain out moronic. How did your idiot brain manage to come to “canned hunting”?
Not sure who you think you are or who you’re talking too....but calling me 3 differnt names in 2 short sentences just shows me you are the one with no brains. Hmmm-’double tap’—are you an alcholic? How’s that for assumptions... don’t bother answering...I’ve no time for typical liberal attacks.
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.