Monster Mountain Lion

[TwoRivers]

Don't forget, the very same people who decry hunting are the ones to call for "government sharpshooters" to cull game whenever deer start eating their rosebushes, or cougar and wolves start snatching their little doggies. Or ask for "Deer Crossing" signs to be moved to a different location, because they have had a few close calls while driving to work.

[Oggie]

Hmm! No one said anything about justification. Man likes to hunt, whether it's for food or a trophy, it fulfills some primal instinct in him. Every legal hunter buys his game. Very few people in developed countries have to hunt for subsistence any more. Today's hunter buys his game, whether it is the money expended in licence fees, the cost of the equipment used or the effort made towards fair chase and to follow the rules. Personally, I've never hunted anything that I couldn't eat but it's precisely because I want to keep hunting (what I like to hunt) that I support other types of hunting. If I just did it to eat meat, I could go down to the corner grocery store and pick up a pound of hamburger. It would be a lot cheaper in time, money and energy to do that, rather than hunt.

Couldn't agree more !

"just donate the money"? Seriously?
In reality that doesn't happen much. There are millions of animal and bird lovers in North America. They are out there with their cameras all the time and, by God, they believe in conservation. What is donated by them towards conservation is a drop in the bucket compared to what hunters and fishermen put out. Without getting something in return, no one is going to plunk down thousands of dollars. If you were to ban hunting in North America today, the conservation dollars WILL dry up. With no money coming in for research and to pay Rangers, you can eventually kiss a lot of species goodbye. That's just simple reality. Hey, it's happened all over the world.

Couldn't agree more - my point though was that certain hunters (and God bless them) love the thrill of chasing dangerous game. The fact that their money contributes to conservation is but one positive aspect of their payment. The point is they are (whether one admits it or not) paying for the hunt and that money or part of that is being used for conservation. Conservation by association to hunting is heartily accepted and welcomed.

To impute that hunting one species is sporting and hunting another is not is a rather specious argument. Similar to the argument; "why do you need an AR15 when you can just shoot with a bolt action rifle"? Or "why do you need a semi auto rifle when you can just use a single shot for everything"? People like that are often referred to as "Fudd's" after Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoon. Fudd's reason is that it is OK to ban one type of gun because they don't use it. More rational thinkers might compare behavior like that to an Ostrich sticking it's head in the sand.

Now now this is not an accurate representation of my statement Xl - lets be fair. I did not state that the hunting of one species is more sporting than the other. I did say that there is a different kind of thrill/ drive/ motive etc between hunting prey species (deer, pigs etc) and predatory dangerous game (lion, leopard, Coughar etc). When something can bite/claw back or end up reversing the hunter into the hunted it certainly demands a helluva lot more respect. Don't you agree ?

[TC]

What a majestic creature !
Thanks for sharing XL ...

Interesting posts... just trying to place all the arguments against the backdrop of the harsh reality in India

TC

[ARAE]

[ Image ]

These photos of a massive mountain lion have circulated the web for months over email, forums, and social media. Rumors suggested it was killed in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho and who knows how many hunters have claimed by now that it was taken by a "buddy of a friend."

But the truth is that the cougar was taken by Rob Klein (right) in December on a hunt with Fraser Valley Outfitters in west-central Alberta. "I put the picture on my Facebook page and from there it just kind of went viral," Klein says. "The cat's been taken in 13 states by 25 different guys … I had a guy arguing with me on one of the sites saying 'No, you didn't shoot that cat, it was shot by a buddy of mine.'"

[ Image ]

The viral nature of the photos is understandable, because the cat looks, well, enormous.
For reference, Klein stands 6 feet tall and weighs 260 pounds.
Klein says the lion weighed more than 200 pounds and has an official Boone & Crockett score of 15 4/16 inches (the world record cat scored 16 4/16 inches).

[ Image ]

But for all the excitement surrounding the photos, Klein actually had pretty typical mountain lion hunt. They had located a big tom that the guides knew was in the area, boxed it in, and then tracked it in the snow. The guide was hesitant to cut his dogs loose at first because there were so many wolves in the area. When wolves hear hounds baying, they'll charge in and try to kill the dogs.

When they thought they had gained enough ground on the cat, they cut three hounds loose and the chase was on. After about 30 minutes, the dogs had the tom treed at the bottom of a huge creek gully. It took Klein and the guides about an hour to hike through the snow and over scattered deadfalls down to the cat.

"It was a nightmare of a place to get into, it wasn't pretty that's for sure," he says. From there, a single shot from Klein's .270 short mag. brought the mountain lion down.

"That was the first cat I've ever harvested," Klein says. "I've chased elk, mule deer, and bears, but this was by far the most exciting hunt I've ever been on. Prior to the hunt I thought that you just walk in on the cat and shoot him and it's all yippee kaya ... but these don't cats just sit in trees. There's the possibility that they'll jump trees, come down and fight the dogs, hunters have even been stalked on some occasions."

Maybe the most interesting fact from Klein's hunt is that they first cut the big cat's track just outside of a semi-suburban area.

"In the country where we first cut the track, kids could have been out there waiting for the school bus," Klein said.

click here for the full article

[Skyman]

Don't forget, the very same people who decry hunting are the ones to call for "government sharpshooters" to cull game whenever deer start eating their rosebushes, or cougar and wolves start snatching their little doggies. Or ask for "Deer Crossing" signs to be moved to a different location, because they have had a few close calls while driving to work.

EXACTLY.There was a video a while back, where a woman called the cops/radio station ( I don't remember who exactly ) and asked them to " Move the deer sign, so the deer won't cross near wherever ".

Her logic - Deer read the sign and cross the road. SO move the sign!!

[skeetshot]

Oh yes, that is a pig of a mountain lion !!!

[xl_target]

Now now this is not an accurate representation of my statement Xl - lets be fair. I did not state that the hunting of one species is more sporting than the other. I did say that there is a different kind of thrill/ drive/ motive etc between hunting prey species (deer, pigs etc) and predatory dangerous game (lion, leopard, Coughar etc). When something can bite/claw back or end up reversing the hunter into the hunted it certainly demands a helluva lot more respect. Don't you agree ?

Sorry, apparently I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

I absolutely agree with the above statement. It's a whole different ballgame when the target starts looking at you with a gleam in its eye .
However, my statements were not exactly directed at you in particular but to the readership of this forum in general. I believe in your case, it is preaching to the choir. One of the functions of this forum is to educate, I believe.
I feel it is important to let the members of this forum see both sides of the story and not have to rely on the normal stilted accounts that they normally pick up from the media. It is a lot easier to get a point across when it is couched as a counter-point to another statement.

[prashantsingh]

....
.. just trying to place all the arguments against the backdrop of the harsh reality in India

TC

When we talk about saving the big cats in India . We have to talk about saving all the animals they feed on.
That's what makes tiger conservation so important. If you can save the tiger. You automatically save the habitat and all the other animals of the Indian jungle.
Unfortunately in India. Loss of habitat, poaching and pressure on land where man is steadily moving into our forest in search of firewood and fodder (for cattle) has lead to devastating results. Needless to say where ever there are forest (within India). Man animal conflict is on the rise.

Hunting raises those much needed funds to preserve the habitat.
In Africa a Trophy hunter hunting the Big 5 shells out a hell of a lot of money . Much more than hundreds of guys on a "photo safari" would ever do.
Who would cause more disturbance to the animals and damage to the environment ? One trophy hunter who is on a lion hunt. A person who is paying for the maintainance of the reserve......
or a 100 photographers in their jeeps looking for big game.
I have experienced this first hand in Corbett N.P.. The moment someone spots a tiger. Jeeps move in fast and soon there is a traffic jam of sorts.......till the animal is forced to leave in disgust.

[Oggie]

Sorry, apparently I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

I absolutely agree with the above statement. It's a whole different ballgame when the target starts looking at you with a gleam in its eye .
However, my statements were not exactly directed at you in particular but to the readership of this forum in general. I believe in your case, it is preaching to the choir. One of the functions of this forum is to educate, I believe.
I feel it is important to let the members of this forum see both sides of the story and not have to rely on the normal stilted accounts that they normally pick up from the media. It is a lot easier to get a point across when it is couched as a counter-point to another statement.

Xl - mate - no apology needed. I really enjoy reading your inputs and they are well articulated and balanced. Added to that you have a very good command over English that makes the read very enjoyable indeed. I did also learn a new word "specious" - will now use it often

[timmy]

When we talk about saving the big cats in India . We have to talk about saving all the animals they feed on.
That's what makes tiger conservation so important. If you can save the tiger. You automatically save the habitat and all the other animals of the Indian jungle.
Unfortunately in India. Loss of habitat, poaching and pressure on land where man is steadily moving into our forest in search of firewood and fodder (for cattle) has lead to devastating results. Needless to say where ever there are forest (within India). Man animal conflict is on the rise.

Hunting raises those much needed funds to preserve the habitat.
In Africa a Trophy hunter hunting the Big 5 shells out a hell of a lot of money . Much more than hundreds of guys on a "photo safari" would ever do.
Who would cause more disturbance to the animals and damage to the environment ? One trophy hunter who is on a lion hunt. A person who is paying for the maintainance of the reserve......
or a 100 photographers in their jeeps looking for big game.
I have experienced this first hand in Corbett N.P.. The moment someone spots a tiger. Jeeps move in fast and soon there is a traffic jam of sorts.......till the animal is forced to leave in disgust.

Exactly so, Prashantji! The tiger doesn't live alone, but at the top of the food chain. It is axiomatic in Biology circles, that each time one moves up a rung in the food chain, only 10% of the energy is used.

So, the animal that eats the plants only recovers 10% of the energy available in the plant. The animal that eats the plant eater only derives 10% of the energy stored in the plant eater's body, so only 1% of the energy stored in the plant goes to that predator.

This continues for each rung up the ladder in the "food pyramid," and explains why a top predator like a tiger needs such a large range.

Then, in order for the tiger population in an area to remain viable, there must be enough of them to maintain a certain level of genetic diversity, or they will become inbred and die out when some disease or parasite strikes.

It is a huge operation to maintain a large population of big cats -- very expensive in land, personnel, and so forth.

Then, as you point out, there are all the city dwellers who the big cats want to avoid, which is another management problem.

As XL clearly points out so well, the hunters fund the bulk of this. There would hardly be any waterfowl in the USA, were it not for hunters. Groups like Ducks Unlimited have pumped huge sums of money into buying and maintaining wetlands environment for waterfowl -- this is something ALL citizens benefit from, but only the hunters pay for it.

[xl_target]

Prashant, You are so correct.
India's problems with wildlife conservation, today, seem almost insurmountable. There is no quick fix or easy answer to that problem.

I really enjoy reading your inputs and they are well articulated and balanced. Added to that you have a very good command over English that makes the read very enjoyable indeed.

For that you can thank Mr Edward McGready of the Frank Anthony Public Schools. May he rest in peace.
He definitely deserves to after all the stuff he put up with, from me and others like me.

[bennedose]

I think that is a terrible picture. What good is a dead lion? Like dinosaur bones - a memory of something great that lived. No glory to the shooter.

[prashantsingh]

I respect your opinion bennedose.
But we can not deny the fact that hunting, in countries where it is practiced, contributes to wildlife conservation by bringing in the much needed funds .
Here is how we Indians see our forests.
Below is a snap of a wild boar competing with cattle for food. I have hundreds of similar snaps.

Infact this post and TC's comment have inspired me to write a new post on how we in India are raping our forests through all the other possible ways.

[Moin.]

One dumb question.Does poaching happen in the US like it does in India XL. These huge funds from paid hunting has not been able to put a stop to poaching in Africa. So is it that only the game reserves prospers and are properly managed. What about the rest of the forests and wildlife in African countries.

Thanks
Moin.

[prashantsingh]

To continue on what I was talking about.
Hunting is banned in India.
Man enters the forest to collect firewood and fodder.
The cattle graze on the same ground which is supposed to be reserved and protected for forest animals.
The forests are surrounded by lush green farm lands.....and when the wild animals move out of the jungle in search of food and water. They are shot in the name of "crop protection".
The big cats which turn to easy game and lift cattle are also poisoned, trapped and shot. Those who turn maneaters (out of starvation) have the same end.
Here is a news clip from yesterdays local newspaper.
A three year old tigress in the prime of young and the best of health is killed by poachers.
The 7th TIGER death in the STATE in the past one year .
Out of these 7 deaths . 6 were due to poisoning. One was of natural causes (territorial fight).
The plight is the same in other states.
Simply because in the largest democracy only votes count.
and like Billy Arjan Singh used to say "Unfortunately. Wild animals can not vote."