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Cougar Sighting in Leander


TwiceHorn

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4 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

Come on now there's a difference. Obviously cougars are most likely going to keep their distance, but cougars killed 2 adults in the PNW last year. There's only been one confirmed adult fatality due to a coyote ever.

Yeah, cougars can approach 200 lbs, bobcats are 20-40 lbs, coyotes about the same.  Unless they are starved or sick, a cougar is pretty unlikely to fuck with you, though.

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Yeah, coyotes are very common. They have been seen in Jersey Village. I saw one along Cypress Creek in NW Houston as a teenager. The last one I saw was crossing a road down around Cuero.

Y’all remember this one, right? Bobcat in a downtown Houston parking garage.

http:// https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chron.com/neighborhood/heights-news/amp/Bobcat-caught-in-downtown-Houston-garage-1718822.php

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10 minutes ago, HouTex said:

My 82 year old mother swears she saw a cougar in far western Fort Bend County last year. She should be able to tell a cougar from a bobcat or other midsized wild feline.

As for coyotes, they are common along Buffalo Bayou throughout Houston. And a friend recently photographed a bobcat in Tanglewood.

Another friend was hiking in Big Bend in the late 00’s and came across a black bear.

I’m waiting for a wolf to make an appearance in the wild in Texas. That would be cool.

Have seen a few coyotes in Briargrove Park.  Mostly around Buffalo Bayou on the north end and on the street that backs up to Rivercrest.  I once saw 2 coyotes in the right  side rough along the 15th hole at  Memorial Park GC.  

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1 hour ago, Zepol87 said:

Kimbrough had a lot of Sunnyvale people so she was probably a slight step up from Mesquite women

Nah, Sunnyvale had its own JH, no way we'd mix with the poors unless required. Poteet HS had a handful of Sunnyvale folks though, and kimbrough fed into poteet, but those days are long gone with Sunnyvale HS in place. 

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1 minute ago, bluto said:

Nah, Sunnyvale had its own JH, no way we'd mix with the poors unless required. Poteet HS had a handful of Sunnyvale folks though, and kimbrough fed into poteet, but those days are long gone with Sunnyvale HS in place. 

Poteet had all the hoes. It was awesome

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Mountain lions are cool as shit.  25 years ago, hunting at Tejas camp on Lake Georgetown, we were walking down the San Gabriel and crossed at a big sandbar.  Lots of turkey tracks....interspersed with some BIG cat tracks, clearly mountain lion.

Oh, and for critters that USED to roam this area, my favorite is the jaguar (also my favorite big cat).  Here's a story of the last one killed around here, in Mills County: http://www.texasescapes.com/MikeCoxTexasTales/Tiger-Hunt-in-Mills-County.htm

Quote

In South Texas, many called it “El Tigre,” Spanish for the tiger. More scientifically, the name is Panthera onca. But its best-known name is jaguar.

Jaguars have beautiful, spotted furs, move with stealth and grace and in modern times have had luxury cars and football teams named after them. They are also the largest cat found in North America, wide-ranging carnivores equipped with powerful jaws and long, fierce teeth capable of crushing the skull of a soon-to-be meal.

Not surprisingly, early Texans did not think Texascovered enough square miles to accommodate both man and jaguar. 

The last time one of the big cats is known to have been killed in state was in 1947 in the Rio Grande Valley, but even four decades earlier, the animals had become scarce in the Lone Star State. The reason is that they had a bad reputation, whether deserved or not. Seeing the cats as a threat to livestock and humans alike, jaguars had a figurative target on their hides just like bear, wolves, mountain lions and venomous reptiles. 

“It stirs the imagination to recall that this terrible jaguar once roamed plentifully throughout Texas,” wrote J.G. Burr in 1930 for the “Year Book on Texas Conservation of Wildlife 1929-30,” a publication of the old Game, Fish and Oyster Commission, now the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. “This tropical beast, though receding before the advance of civilization, may at any time cross into Texas from Mexico, where it persists in considerable numbers.” 

Whether jaguars are truly terrible is debatable, but they do grow larger than any other cat in the Western hemisphere, including the much more common mountain lion. In fact, the jaguar is the only member of the tiger family on the continent.

The Depression-era state report features a photograph of one of the big Texas tigers killed near Goldthwaite in 1903 – the last of the species ever reported in the interior of the state. The image shows two men with rifles posing with the dead jaguar outside the Mills County courthouse. Also in the photograph are two of the dogs that sniffed out the cat. 

One of the men participating in the hunt was Homer Brown, who described the event in a letter to a friend. The letter had come into the possession of H.P. Attwater, a wildlife biologist from Houston who shipped the jaguar’s skull and hide to the Smithsonian. Burr got access to the letter from Attwater and excerpted it in his report. 

Whether the men who took the big cat had any intention of seeking a jaguar is not explained in the letter. More likely, they were hoping to jump a much-more-common mountain lion. All Brown said by way of explanation was that an acquaintance named Henry Morris came to his place to go hunting, which they did on the night of Sept. 3, 1903. 

With a boy named Johnnie Walton, the hunters had supper at Brown’s place and then “started for the mountains three miles southwest of Center City.” At dusk, their baying dogs enthusiastically took up a trail. 

“We ran him about three miles and treed him in a small Spanish oak,” Brown wrote. “I shot him in the body with a Colt .45. He fell out of the tree and the hounds ran him about half a mile and bayed [cornered] him.” 

The .45 round, despite its man-killing punch, must not have hit the cat in a vital area because Brown sent Morris hurrying to Center City for “[more] guns and ammunition.” Ninety minutes later, Morris returned leading a small posse of well-armed Mills County men.

“We commenced the fight with 10 hounds, but when we got him killed there were three dogs with him, and one of them wounded. He killed one dog and very nearly killed several others. He got hold of Bill Morris’ horse and bit it so bad it died from its wounds,” Brown wrote.

The standoff ended with the cat’s death about midnight. 

The jaguar measured 6 feet, 6 inches from nose to the end of its short tail and weighed 140 pounds. As large as the animal looked in the photograph, that is only a modest size for a jaguar, which can reach 300 pounds or more. 

Apparently not bothered that a species was coming close to extinction in Texas, in the item he included in his report, Burr seemed more interested in how the hounds fared than the demise of a magnificent animal. 

“One must admire the courage of the 10 hounds that brought the animal to bay and especially the three that remained to the end of the battle and the one that gave up his life,” Burr wrote. “To be perfectly fair, we must admire the good judgment of the six [dogs] that retired to safety from an unequal combat with a beast so terribly weaponed – the greatest of North American cats.” 

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27 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Interesting story, but cringey as hell from the perspective of hunters just doing whatever the fuck they feel like.

Yeah, I know.  Different times, man.  That's how you have to look at these things.

Hell, I'm a hunter, and I have no interest in killing a predator like that - mountain lion, jaguar, bear.  I'm just pumped to be out there on the same turf with them.  If I ever saw a jaguar in the wild, it really would be a life high point.  I mean, presuming that he wasn't in the act of jumping my ass and killing me.  That would be a downer.

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10 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, I know.  Different times, man.  That's how you have to look at these things.

Hell, I'm a hunter, and I have no interest in killing a predator like that - mountain lion, jaguar, bear.  I'm just pumped to be out there on the same turf with them.  If I ever saw a jaguar in the wild, it really would be a life high point.  I mean, presuming that he wasn't in the act of jumping my ass and killing me.  That would be a downer.

I mountain bike because it's an easy way to get outside and into some urban wilderness (I have been surprised how rugged some "greenbelts" in Dallas actually are), because I don't get into the "real woods" often enough for my taste.

The highlight pretty much of my mountain biking thus far was on a trail in Addison about where the George Bush crosses the Tollway.  I saw some movement over to my left, thought it was the usual bunny or squirrel, and a bobcat came loping out of the brush, got on the trail ahead of me and I "chased" it for about 20 yards before it went off into the brush again.  It was cool as hell.

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48 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Mountain lions are cool as shit.  25 years ago, hunting at Tejas camp on Lake Georgetown, we were walking down the San Gabriel and crossed at a big sandbar.  Lots of turkey tracks....interspersed with some BIG cat tracks, clearly mountain lion.

Oh, and for critters that USED to roam this area, my favorite is the jaguar (also my favorite big cat).  Here's a story of the last one killed around here, in Mills County: http://www.texasescapes.com/MikeCoxTexasTales/Tiger-Hunt-in-Mills-County.htm

full-22323-133041-img_0450.jpg

Jaguars are not to be trifled with. 

 

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Interesting story, but cringey as hell from the perspective of hunters just doing whatever the fuck they feel like.

I wouldn't shoot a cougar now, but that would have been my ultimate prize as a hunter when I was a teenager and into my 20's.  They are not endangered and they are not protected.  See https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/nuisance/mountain_lion/

Ranchers shoot them at every opportunity.  Some (all?) cougars will kill livestock seemingly for spite and not just for food.  

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1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, I know.  Different times, man.  That's how you have to look at these things.

Hell, I'm a hunter, and I have no interest in killing a predator like that - mountain lion, jaguar, bear.  I'm just pumped to be out there on the same turf with them.  If I ever saw a jaguar in the wild, it really would be a life high point.  I mean, presuming that he wasn't in the act of jumping my ass and killing me.  That would be a downer.

I'm a rancher, and I'm not even sure I could shoot something like that.  Probably just have to sacrifice a calf to the badass predator gods.  

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52 minutes ago, HouTex said:

I wouldn't shoot a cougar now, but that would have been my ultimate prize as a hunter when I was a teenager and into my 20's.  They are not endangered and they are not protected.  See https://tpwd.texas.gov/huntwild/wild/nuisance/mountain_lion/

Ranchers shoot them at every opportunity.  Some (all?) cougars will kill livestock seemingly for spite and not just for food.  

Yeah, I know.  But with respect to the jaguar, which seems to have been extirpated in the US, es no bueno. 

I am no longer an active hunter, but have in the past.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-hunting in any way, shape, or form.  Particularly now

A jaguar escaped its enclosure for under an hour at the New Orleans zoo not too long ago (another google app story) and murdered llamas and other things solely for sport apparently.  They didn't euthanize, though, said "jaguar gonna jaguar."

Cats seem to have hunting so hardwired into them that hunting behavior is play to them as well as survival.

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1 hour ago, HouTex said:

Ranchers shoot them at every opportunity.  Some (all?) cougars will kill livestock seemingly for spite and not just for food.  

A guy east of us in Zavala County has 2 Bengal tigers in a very large enclosure.  He traps feral hogs to feed the tigers.  The  hogs are kept in a  large pen with forage and water.  Apparently there was quite a ruckus one day as the pigs were squealing and going crazy.  He goes out to see what the to do was all about and a mountain lion had somehow got into the pen and slaughtered all of the pigs.  All the while, the tigers sat and watched.  

Snitches get stitches.

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17 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I know.  But with respect to the jaguar, which seems to have been extirpated in the US, es no bueno. 

I am no longer an active hunter, but have in the past.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-hunting in any way, shape, or form.  Particularly now

A jaguar escaped its enclosure for under an hour at the New Orleans zoo not too long ago (another google app story) and murdered llamas and other things solely for sport apparently.  They didn't euthanize, though, said "jaguar gonna jaguar."

Cats seem to have hunting so hardwired into them that hunting behavior is play to them as well as survival.

I left off or somehow lost the part about "intelligently controlled willdlife populations, where hunting is a big part of it."

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Re: that fox, back during the worst part of the drought there was a mama fox that used to come up from the small green belt down the street, and just lay in the front yard, chilling out. She'd just lay there, even with kids playing outside and in the street. I'd open the front door and sit on the porch watching her, not 25 feet away, and she didn't seem to mind me at all. It was crazy. She was also keeping her babies down closer to the woods in a neighbor's yard, in a hollowed out tree in the front yard. 

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33 minutes ago, deadshank said:

A guy east of us in Zavala County has 2 Bengal tigers in a very large enclosure.  He traps feral hogs to feed the tigers.  The  hogs are kept in a  large pen with forage and water.  Apparently there was quite a ruckus one day as the pigs were squealing and going crazy.  He goes out to see what the to do was all about and a mountain lion had somehow got into the pen and slaughtered all of the pigs.  All the while, the tigers sat and watched.  

Snitches get stitches.

My only possible encounter was in Llano during bow season.  Right at dusk I was walking to my truck from the tripod and heard the most horrific screaming and squealing from a hog for about 5 seconds and then another 5 seconds of guttural groaning and then dead quiet.  There were 4 of us hunting in the same general area and when we all got back to camp,  Everyone was quiet and looked a little peaked.  After a couple of minutes I said "Y'all heard that too?"  Everyone nodded.  If it wasn't a cat that had gotten a hog by the throat, I don't know what it was.  It was a tense walk back into the tripod the next morning.

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49 minutes ago, deadshank said:

A guy east of us in Zavala County has 2 Bengal tigers in a very large enclosure.  He traps feral hogs to feed the tigers.  The  hogs are kept in a  large pen with forage and water.  Apparently there was quite a ruckus one day as the pigs were squealing and going crazy.  He goes out to see what the to do was all about and a mountain lion had somehow got into the pen and slaughtered all of the pigs.  All the while, the tigers sat and watched.  

Snitches get stitches.

Fuck me.

Pleasepleaseplease don't ever let those tigers escape. Got damn. 

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1 minute ago, Reagan1k said:

My only possible encounter was in Llano during bow season.  Right at dusk I was walking to my truck from the tripod and heard the most horrific screaming and squealing from a hog for about 5 seconds and then another 5 seconds of guttural groaning and then dead quiet.  There were 4 of us hunting in the same general area and when we all got back to camp,  Everyone was quiet and looked a little peaked.  After a couple of minutes I said "Y'all heard that too?"  Everyone nodded.  If it wasn't a cat that had gotten a hog by the throat, I don't know what it was.  It was a tense walk back into the tripod the next morning.

Saw what looked like a mountain lion run across the highway way out in west Texas a few years ago on a late night run to Ruidoso to go skiing. We joked that it might have been a chupacabra. At the time we didn't think mountain lions were a thing in that area, but now I think it probably was one.

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2 minutes ago, Reagan1k said:

My only possible encounter was in Llano during bow season.  Right at dusk I was walking to my truck from the tripod and heard the most horrific screaming and squealing from a hog for about 5 seconds and then another 5 seconds of guttural groaning and then dead quiet.  There were 4 of us hunting in the same general area and when we all got back to camp,  Everyone was quiet and looked a little peaked.  After a couple of minutes I said "Y'all heard that too?"  Everyone nodded.  If it wasn't a cat that had gotten a hog by the throat, I don't know what it was.  It was a tense walk back into the tripod the next morning.

We're in NW Hills, and hadn't been in our house but a couple of months, and one night we were having heavy rain.  Probably around 11:00 pm, after we'd gone to bed, I wake up to godawful screaming in the greenbelt behind the house.  Took me a few seconds to realize what it was, and I put my head back down.  At which point my wife bolts upright, and jumps out of bed heading for the door.  "Where are you going?"  She says "there's a child screaming down in the greenbelt!"  Ummm, that's not a child  It's a fawn.  Something's killing it.  "Well....we have to do something!"  "No, we don't...it'll be over soon."  I doubt it was a mountain lion -- probably a bobcat or coyote -- but it was the first time my wife had heard an animal's death screams.  She did not take it well.

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My only possible encounter was in Llano during bow season.  Right at dusk I was walking to my truck from the tripod and heard the most horrific screaming and squealing from a hog for about 5 seconds and then another 5 seconds of guttural groaning and then dead quiet.  There were 4 of us hunting in the same general area and when we all got back to camp,  Everyone was quiet and looked a little peaked.  After a couple of minutes I said "Y'all heard that too?"  Everyone nodded.  If it wasn't a cat that had gotten a hog by the throat, I don't know what it was.  It was a tense walk back into the tripod the next morning.

Do you even Sasquatch?
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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I mountain bike because it's an easy way to get outside and into some urban wilderness (I have been surprised how rugged some "greenbelts" in Dallas actually are), because I don't get into the "real woods" often enough for my taste.

The highlight pretty much of my mountain biking thus far was on a trail in Addison about where the George Bush crosses the Tollway.  I saw some movement over to my left, thought it was the usual bunny or squirrel, and a bobcat came loping out of the brush, got on the trail ahead of me and I "chased" it for about 20 yards before it went off into the brush again.  It was cool as hell.

Yeah as a mountain biker myself, this shit might have me rethinking some of the sounds I hear when riding that I usually dismiss as squirrels, etc. Big cats have been known to (rarely) go after MTBers iirc.

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

We're in NW Hills, and hadn't been in our house but a couple of months, and one night we were having heavy rain.  Probably around 11:00 pm, after we'd gone to bed, I wake up to godawful screaming in the greenbelt behind the house.  Took me a few seconds to realize what it was, and I put my head back down.  At which point my wife bolts upright, and jumps out of bed heading for the door.  "Where are you going?"  She says "there's a child screaming down in the greenbelt!"  Ummm, that's not a child  It's a fawn.  Something's killing it.  "Well....we have to do something!"  "No, we don't...it'll be over soon."  I doubt it was a mountain lion -- probably a bobcat or coyote -- but it was the first time my wife had heard an animal's death screams.  She did not take it well.

Yeah the wife doesn't take too well to predators doing what predators naturally do, and always thinks we need to step in and protect the prey...even when our cats attack lizards, etc. LOL.

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

We're in NW Hills, and hadn't been in our house but a couple of months, and one night we were having heavy rain.  Probably around 11:00 pm, after we'd gone to bed, I wake up to godawful screaming in the greenbelt behind the house.  Took me a few seconds to realize what it was, and I put my head back down.  At which point my wife bolts upright, and jumps out of bed heading for the door.  "Where are you going?"  She says "there's a child screaming down in the greenbelt!"  Ummm, that's not a child  It's a fawn.  Something's killing it.  "Well....we have to do something!"  "No, we don't...it'll be over soon."  I doubt it was a mountain lion -- probably a bobcat or coyote -- but it was the first time my wife had heard an animal's death screams.  She did not take it well.

Reminds me of a ruckus on my Austin neighborhood Nextdoor a while back.  There's still a small existing ranch south of us near Manchaca that has cattle.  One evening a calf was bawling bloody murder (could hear it a mile away).   Someone posted "COW IN DISTRESS!!" and much handwringing, calling of 911, 311 and Hays animal control, it turned out the rancher was just separating some calves from their mommas overnight to work them the next morning.

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