WHAT'S YOUR THOUGHT

[Cut N Run]

A friend of my wife's has a horse farm up in Virginia and she emailed us what she thought were bear tracks going through the mud on the way to one of her barns. After studying the pics, they are no doubt mountain lion tracks. Even though she lives in a fairly remote area (outside of Floyd, Va.), I suspect the tracks belong to a cougar that was probably captive bred & released or escaped. They are very adaptable animals and exploit their environment extremely well. Between rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, opossums, deer, quail, turkeys, barnyard animals, livestock, & pets, there's a lot of food for a big cat to prey upon.

Given that her horses have not been attacked and the tracks have not been seen around there since, I imagine that cat was just passing through. It freaked her out in a big way. You can bet her horses stay locked up at night.

Jim

[Ruger M77]

Here in PA i hear stories all the time about moutain lions its unbelievable how many people claim 2 have seen them.I have never seen any sighns of them and Im in the woods alot more than most people. Ive never heard of anybody seeing tracks or anything. If they are seeing lions its probably sombodys pet they left loose.

[jdbell91]

Steve_IN,

There was a mountain lion verified in the Bedford area in southern IN in September or October of last year. As luck would have it, that is where I hunt. It was seen on the property on a hill side above my normal tree stand!

On the second day of the firearms season the mountain lion was spotted on neighboring property chasing a deer in the middle of the day!

As you can imagine, we now have a weapon with us every time we are on the property. It is illegal to kill one unless it is self defense. I pray it does not come to that.

You can imagine how scary this makes walking to and from your hunting spot in the dark. Now every pair of eyes we see is a mountain lion. It has made us all very nervous, but it has not kept us from hunting the land.

[Steve_In]

I ththink there was a confirmed one at Crane and one south of Martinsville too. I had an up close encounter with a bobcat at Crane a few years ago. I would have shot a mountain lion at the range the bobcat was to me. I have a hard time believing they are coming in from out west unless in a IDNR truck. I am considering going down to Patoka Lake and that is not all that far from Bedford or Crane. I don't carry my muzzle loader capped, I wait until I set-up, I may have to re-think that.