This is topic Mountain Lion sighting in Kansas in forum Predator forum at The New Huntmastersbbs!.
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Posted by booger (Member # 3602) on September 16, 2015, 10:59 AM:
Just saw an article that Wildlife and Parks here has confirmed a lion sighting just 5 miles north of the town where I live.
http://www.greatbendpost.com/2015/09/16/wildlife-and-parks-confirms-that-a-mountain-lion-seen-on-a-trail-cam-in-barton-county-earlier-this-month-was-authentic/
It was heading towards the general vicinity where I do some calling...
Posted by Kokopelli (Member # 633) on September 16, 2015, 02:29 PM:
Cool.
That means that there's a chance (slim to none, but still a chance) of calling one in.
And that's REALLY cool !!!!
You might want to chat with Fish & Game about the legalities of shooting one, just in case.
Or start carrying a camera for what would be a photo op of a lifetime.
...................and if you're a mouth caller, watch your back; cats are meat eaters and all of that.
Posted by booger (Member # 3602) on September 16, 2015, 03:30 PM:
Koko,
Yep, it does make me think a bit when I am walking in to that first stand of the morning in the dark...
Wildlife and Park's stance on them is that you had better be defending your life or property if you pop one. The last one shot in Kansas was down close to the OK border. The cat was watching the guy cut wood, and the guy decided the cat was a bit close and smoked it.
Had he have called the game warden then, it would have ended better for him. He decided to not call, and ended up taking the cat to a taxidermist in Texas. As people do, the talk was around town about a lion sighting and the guy finally fessed up and told them what happened. Not sure if he got his pee-pee whacked or what, but I think he got some sort of citation.
Having had a coyote come close to jumping on me on one stand several years ago, I believe I would have to switch to Depends for underwear if I ever had a cat like that sneak up on me! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ September 16, 2015, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: booger ]
Posted by Moe (Member # 4494) on September 16, 2015, 07:12 PM:
I think anyone who has spent any real time calling has called a lion and just didn't see it.
In my years of calling I've called in 3, the last being in September of last year. It came in in about 2 minutes.
Most of my stands are made in open country where it's doubtful that a lion would be. If you want to call in a cougar target the country where you're likely to find one. Also, my best advice is to call in pairs.
Posted by TOM64 (Member # 561) on September 16, 2015, 08:09 PM:
I have seen the mounted lion in the Black Kettle museum out in Cheyenne, was told the shooter was in big trouble.
But still the wildlife dept says we ain't got none around here.
I seen a lion on my sisters place several years ago south of McAlester by Blanco, warden I told didn't believe me.
So now we got black bears raiding corn feeders here in central Oklahoma, game camera pics have been submitted and wildlife dept says they are big dogs. We have no bears this far west.
So a friend of mine kills a 250 lb black bear just North of me here in Ada, all of a sudden, yes we have them and there's a hefty penalty to go along with shooting one.
Be careful your WD ain't as screwy as ours.
Posted by Moe (Member # 4494) on September 17, 2015, 05:22 AM:
The state of Oregon denied that there were wolves coming into the state right up to when the wolves killed some livestock and were seen doing it. Then they announced that there indeed were wolves in Oregon.
Posted by Leonard (Member # 2) on September 17, 2015, 01:19 PM:
This whole, "we ain't got 'em" crap, is wearing a little thin. Please remember, Fish and Game is NOT the last word on anything resembling truth. You know, birds fly and animals can cover a lot of ground. But, they will mouth the party line until you kill one and then they have to admit it and fine you, which is total BS.
The problem is, once you establish a factual evidentiary situation, like shoot a wolf <wink> by mistaken identification, now the asshole have to develop a plan and a policy, and that's work they would rather not get involved in. It is easy to close access, no hunting in blackfoot ferret breeding grounds, and go whole hog, so to speak. Game management is more political than scientific when it suits them.
You want proof? Look at the hysterical response to "alleged" condor lead poisoning from bullets. First a hundred miles along the coast and when they got away with that, hey, "let's make it the whole state". It's a solution in search of a problem. Lead free shotshells @ 4X the price of regular lead shot, and big fines and go to jail, etc.
You give these Liberal control freak assholes an inch and they take a mile. They can't justify or prove anything. But, they write the rules, just to be safe, ya know?
Makes me sick!
Good hunting. El Bee
Posted by Cdog911 (Member # 7) on September 17, 2015, 01:48 PM:
In a general sense, a lot of the changes that led to protection for lions came about as a result of a foundational shift in wildlife management around the early to mid 1980's. Prior to then, wildlife management focused almost exclusively on game species, making more of the huntable stuff for people to hunt and kill. No real money was spent or directed to songbirds and creepy crawlies.
Attention was soon turned to the whole idea of nongame wildlife and the fact that proper management of any depended upon properly managing all. Also prior to this time, your wildlife laws were written in such a way that they listed what could NOT be hunted and killed, and all else was presumed to be shootable. This generally included game animals and the most visible protected species, like eagles. All other wildlife was fair game, if you will, and a lot of animals were being killed just for the fun of it, to the extent that it was becoming a threat to some species and also, a hard practice to defend against non- and anti-hunting social factions.*
In the mid-80's, all that changed when most agencies restructured their mission statements to include all wildlife - game and nongame alike - and part and parcel to that, the sense of the laws was changed to how it is now. The law says what you CAN kill, and anything NOT listed is presumed to be off limits/ protected, thus including non-game and protected species, as well as just about everything else (amphibians, reptiles, sasquatches, etc.). The intent of these changes was valid in that it represented an evolution of modern wildlife management to recognizing its role in managing the entire environment, not just that which could be eaten.
How such an ideology has been adulterated and bastardized is a matter of where you live. In Kansas, the system works quite well and, IMO, has shown little if any abuse. California? What do you expect?
* As much as we would all like to see wildlife management be done strictly by the numbers, and leave political interests out of it entirely, that simply isn't feasible, or realistic. There was a time when I naively believed that decisions were made based upon what best served the interests of the resource. That shit isn't REAL so you play the game the best you can. I've worked on a number of efforts to push for regulatory changes in Kansas and have had some success. The one thing that is always taken into consideration is to frame my arguments based upon how my proposal best suits the person I'm lobbying to (35%), how my ideas will be better received by their constituency (35%), and how the concepts best serve the resource (30%).
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