Mounted search and rescue

["Laurie" <lhanahan@mindspring.com>]

Mountain lions are on the Eastern seaboard.  In February photos from West
Hartford, CT were confirmed to be a Mtn lion and we have had one for years
up in Northern VA, tracks confirmed by wildlife officials.  Several have
been sighted in a northern MD state park.

The problem in many parts of the country are that the mtn lions started out
as illegal pets, then released when they became un-manageable.  So they are
accustomed to humans and are not afraid.  


Laurie Hanahan
TROTSAR
 

-----Original Message-----
From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Una Smith
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 11:01 AM
To: Mounted search and rescue
Subject: Re: [MSAR] cougar sightings

In North America, mountain lions used to range across the entire
continent, before they were hunted nearly to extinction.  Under 
various protections for decades, they have been making a comeback.
They are hunted by permit in some western states, at a rate that
is intended to manage their population size, but apparently use
of those permits is well below quota.

Two categories of cats are dangerous to people:  young and very
hungry, and abnormal.  Abnormal has several types:  habituated
to humans, by being fed or given opportunity to feed from human
habitations;  aversely trained by humans (attempts to teach 
mountain lions to respect people by catching and abusing them
have had the opposite effect;  wildlife managers avoid this by
using drugs to make the animal forget what happened);  and rabid.

With population increase comes the need for juveniles to travel
farther in search of new, empty hunting ranges for themselves.
Coyotes have now returned from the west to the eastern seaboard;
mountain lions are not far behind.

My little town has two resident mountain lions in adjacent canyons.
They are very rarely seen.  I have spent many days in those canyons
without seeing one.  I do regularly see deer and solitary coyotes,
and an elderly donkey in the paddock next door to mine was mauled
last winter by a suspected pack of coyotes.  As long as those two
adult cats remain in their territories, I feel safe enough, but if
one dies, I would like to know about and take precautions until we
know the animal that moves in to fill the void.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico
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