Big kitty foot print

[Keith_Hixson]

This is the paw print of the cat that was following us on Friday the 17th of November on when my son and I climbed Manastash Ridge. There is a nickle beside the print for comparison. The paw print is over 5" in diameter.
It would make a nice house pet for Brother Bob! Cut down on burgleries. But they do eat a lot.


Keith

[SuperScout]

Seeing that cougar print, kindly follow that bit of sage advice I once received from a Chinese mystic: "A big cat may eat you up, but a little pussy never hurt anybody!"

[Keith_Hixson]

Brother Bob has gotten you trashing treads. Now we'll have to extend the counseling session for all of you.

Keith

Brice,
Have a great Thanksgiving.

[82Rigger]

So...how big was this cougar?

Can you tell by the size of the footprint?

[b3196]

All you Sick Puppys have a Great Thanksgiving Believe it or not, three of are headin into the woods to cut firewood while the wives make dinner. Now I gotta figure out which end of the chain saw to hold (its a Polish thing)
Bob K

[SEATJERKER]

...

..."headin' into the woods to cut firewood",...

...

...chain saw,.................... more like saw chains, an, an,...

...won't go there,...

...

[Keith_Hixson]

Polish Logger Wannabee is heading into the Woods. He is trying to find a cougar for a pet, protect his home from burglaries.

Steve,
I was doing my weekly hike up the Manastash Ridge the high school and college have a fitness trail to the top of the ridge. It gains 2,000 ft in elevation in 2.2 miles, quite a workout. Anyway the trail is about 6 miles west of Ellensburg. As many as 500 folks will climb the trail every week. Their have been reports of a cougar sightings on the trail. My son went with me. We getting near the top of the ridge and my son says, we are being watched. I never saw the cougar but I came across his fresh footprints about 200 yards up the trail. The footprints had to be fresh because the ground was frozen except for a few areas where the sun had began to thaw. These prints were right in the middle of a newly thawed patch on the trail. And fresh.

The big cats weigh about 120 lbs females, 150 lbs males. Big Kitty! They are easily hunted with dogs and are almost extinct East of the Rockies. Some in Texas and Western Oklahoma, Florida does have some pumas, cougars, or Mountain Lions.
They need to be reintroduced to the South East so they can get rid of the feral pigs, or red necks.

Check it out on wikipedia.

Keith

Puma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Puma_range.png

[Robert Ryan]

Man I though we covered a lot of ground in Vietnam, the Puma has got it all over us.

[Keith_Hixson]

I did a research paper on Mountain Lions when I was in college. I've only seen three in the wild. I had a friend who use to hunt them with dogs. He told me they are actually quite a few out there. The West Coast States have quite a few. The reason they disappeared back east was because the early settlers realized that they could be hunted easily with hound dogs. Now they have those pigs and lots of deer but no cougar. Some guy shot a cougar down in Oregon that weighed 275 lbs largest recorded.

I still believe that Bob K. needs one for a pet.

The closest relative in the Cat Family is the house cat. Both purr and have long tails. Genetically they are quite close. There was a man in a town near here that raised a cougar from a small kitten. He acted just like a regular house cat, use to scare the mailman and paper boy to death until the man would let them pet the cat. I bet it would scare a burglar from the inner city.

Keith

[covan]

Keith,

In my area of Pennsylvania there is great controversy about the existence of "big cats". Lots of folks say they have seen them but little actual evidence; the Game Commission dismisses the claims. Kinda "he says, she says".

One of the most curious allegations is that the cats have been imported from elsewhere to prey on the deer. Who are the people responsible for importing the cats? The insurance companies.