No mountain lion population problem at all. Nope. None at all.
Apparently the Black Hills are too crowded for mountain lions lately. So they’re out scouting new territory to move into. In our backyards.
According to the Argus Leader:
State game trackers were unable to locate a mountain lion that killed two goats near Hartford on Thursday morning.
Arden Petersen, regional wildlife manager for the state Game, Fish and Parks Department in Sioux Falls, said Friday there was a confirmed lion sighting about five miles north of Hartford.
The agency brought in dogs from the Black Hills and watched the goat carcasses overnight but was unable to locate the cat.
and.. There are obviously a lot fewer cats out here on the prairie or East River than in the Black Hills. And in the Black Hills, people live around and in close proximity to mountain lions, and people get used to living with them.
Read it all here. Oh, no big deal. “People get used to living with them.”
I think it should more properly be “people need to get used to the idea that we need to drastically cut their numbers before they kill someone’s kid in their backyard.” Good gosh – they’re hanging out in Hartford now?
It’s ridiculous to think that given their increasing numbers that there’s a restricted hunting season on them, as opposed to a bounty. If the state wants to protect them in the hills, I can live with that. But in backyards at the eastern edge of the state? I think that it’s time to lock and load.
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Comments
Mountain lions are everywhere in the state and it is only a matter of time until someone is killed by them. I agree with PP, lock and load. A hunting season might be all they need for cougar control in the Black Hills, but outside of the Hills mountain lions should be treated no differently than other large predators that can be shot on sight.
GF&P is resisting this because selling mountain lion hunting licenses is a big revenue raiser for them. Money is much more important to GF&P than the lives of South Dakotans. Until a GF&P family member is killed by the largest predators in the state, they will fight any move that will reduce their revenue.
Well along with a mountain lion season, even though there is no recorded attack ever in SD history, just to protect ourselves here in the “nanny” state maybe we need a open season on……..crooked politicians and real estate agents who have gotten out of control.
Mountain lion hysteria! They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere! They’re killing machines waiting to get our children! Our children!
Oh, we got trouble
Right here in East River
Right here in East River
With a capital ‘C’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for ‘puma’
Come to think of it, I know a guy who got killed by a horse a few years back. We better kill the horses too.
So Billy Joe, are you willing to leave South Dakota to make room for the lions? And could you take 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 with you? California is calling….
Overreation to a mountain lion in Hartford? I’d say so. I wonder how many South Dakotans have even seen a mountain lion. Moreover, recorded attacks are so small in number, it’s rediculous to overreact. GFP doesn’t make much on mountain lion licenses. Pheasants are where the revenue’s at. Frankly, I think it’s refreshing that with all of the development in the Black Hills, mountain lions have survived. I just returned from Alaska where I fished among animals that are considered more dangerous, by far, than mountain lions. Alaska Brown Bears, also known as Grizzlies. Would I want to see them eliminated? No way.
A deputy sheriff from the Hills has a scary story about his son who was bow hunting for elk and was stalked by three full grown lions. Scared to death and armed only with a bow and arrow, he shot an arrow at the closest one, but the arrow was deflected by a branch before it hit the cat.
The cougar was wounded and took off up the trail. The other two mountain lions watched the young hunter for awhile before they turned and went back up the trail that he had to follow to get back to his vehicle.
They told the state trapper about the incident, but no one has been able to find the wounded lion, although there was a long trail of blood to follow.
Another young man, who is in a wheelchair after being crippled in a rodeo wreck, used to hunt with this guy, but those hunts are going to have to stop. He usually pushes his friend’s wheelchair near a waterhole and leaves him there with a crossbow in his lap to wait for game to come to water while the first hunter goes off into the woods on his own hunt. Now they realize that leaving the wheelchair bound hunter alone in the woods is like leaving bait for the cats.
The other sad thing about this story is that the young hunter worries about getting in trouble for shooting a cat that was threatening his life. Do you see several things wrong in this whole mess?
This is an old list of fatalities caused by cougar attacks. While there have been more attacks since, they are not listed.
Fatal Mountain Lion Attacks
1. California – June 1890 7 year old boy killed by two lions while playing near his home in Siskiyou County.
2. California – July 1909 Rabid cougar attacks woman and child who survived the attack but died later from rabies.
3. Washington – December 1924 13 year old boy attacked and killed by a 3 year old healthy male cougar.
4. British Columbia – June 1949 7 year old boy was attacked and killed while walking on the beach
5. British Columbia – January 1971 12 year old boy attacked and killed by male cougar while playing with his sisters.
6. New Mexico – January 1974 8 year old boy killed by 3 year old female cougar
7. British Columbia – July 1976 7 year old girl killed by 2 year old male lion on Vancouver Island.
8. British Columbia – May 1988 9 year old boy stalked and killed by 4 year old male mountain Lion.
9. Montana – September 1989 a 5 year old boy was attacked and killed by at least two possibly three cougars.
10. Colorado – January 1991 18 year old boy killed while jogging on his high school track
11. California – March 1991 3 year old attacked and killed by cougar.
12. British Columbia – May 1992, 7 year old boy attacked and killed while playing in the school yard. the young female cougar was killed at the scene.
13. California – April 1994, 40 year old, female long distance runner was attacked and killed while jogging in the Auburn State Recreation area.
14. California – December 1994 56 year old woman was killed while hiking alone in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.
15. British Columbia – August 1996, Mother killed while defending her 6 year old son on horse back riding trip.
16. Colorado – July 1997, 10 year old boy killed by an adult female cougar while hiking in Ricky Mountain National Park.
17. Colorado – October 1999, 3 year old missing boys remains found and evidence suggests killed by Mountain Lion.
18. Alberta – January 2001 30 year old female skier killed by mountain in Banff National Park.
19. Arkansas – May 2003 41 year old woman was killed in her yard by what was most likely a cougar.
20. California – January 2004 35 year old male attacked and killed and partially consumed while mountain biking.
The sources for this information include the California Department of Fish and Game, Paul Beier’s Cougar attacks, and various news articles that are linked to above where the link is still active.
http://www.southeasternoutdoors.com/wildlife/mammals/mountain-lion-attacks-fatal.html
You mean that guy went out into the woods and the mtn lion had the audacity to stalk him? Just proves my point, we need to kill them all just to be safe.
There are about 25 fatal dog attacks per year:
http://www.dogexpert.com/FatalDogAttacks/fataldogattacks.html
Obviously a much more serious threat than mountain lions, and dogs live in cities. The thing to do, clearly, is to start hunting dogs. Lock and load.
Maybe some mountain lions think some people have too many kids. I do too. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a reasonable cat season.
GFP makes cat squat off lion licenses. not worth the hassle.
I don’t know what the figures are for the 2007 mountain lion season, but in 2006 there were 3,016 Black Hills mountain lion licenses sold. At $15 a piece, that’s $45,240.00. There were 290 prairie licenses sold, which adds another $4,350.00, making a grand total of $49, 590.00!! Now that might mean squat to you, but it darn sure sounds like real money to me!
I have no idea how many licenses will be sold this year, but you can be sure GF&P stands to profit handsomely once again.
We see that the lion reintroduction has gone along quite well. Better than planned. It’s going to be absolute mayhem when when they reintroduce wolves.
19, are you daft?
You call 42K gross license sales ‘profiting’? Go look at GFP’s budget.
start calculating the costs associated with handling the applications and licenses, dealing with all the media morons and bleeding hearts, developing a plan to set and manage the limits, to justify them to people like you.
42K gross income. Yeah. They’re clearly in it for the money. I bet that’ll pay a dozen overpriced state employee salaries and benefits.
Daft? I don’t think so, but I have been called worse. Why does GF&P need to sell ANY licenses for mountain lions? They didn’t have to declare lions a game animal!
If GF&P just left the cougars as the predators they are, we could have hunted them with the same predator license that we use for coyotes and fox. Clearly GF&P was in this for the money. What other possible reason would they have for designating the large predators game animals?
I do agree with your statement about “overpriced state employee salaries and benefits”. Way too much money goes to GF&P without any accountability.
Only sportsmen/women license money is spent by GF&P, they receive NO general funds for the Wildlife division.
Lions use to be a protected species by the state, by making the a game aniamal they could set a season just like all of the rest of the predators in the state.
I think the GF&P have a great staff and are a very professionasl organization.
All GF&P had to do was to take the mountain lions off the protected list. They didn’t need to declare them a game animal unless GF&P wanted to sell licenses!! I
f the cougars were simply listed as the predators they are, we would be allowed to shoot them like we do coyotes with only a predator license.
No season, no reporting to the game warden – and best of all – no extra revenue to Game, Fish and Parks!!
Hey 25, which part of this “very professional” organization are you? A game warden, a trapper, a wildlife biologist or just a secretary on that “great staff”?
I agree with #25, and I’m not with the GF&P.
Some of you say you were bitten by a dog, kill them! Of course you are just sarcastic. But, isn’t that what a lot of cities are doing? You know, banning the pit bulls because they are killer dogs! You actually make sense in your stupidity.
26 this is 25 I am no party of GF&P or even state govt.
Our GF&P and all state workers for the most part are very good employees, dedicated to their jobs, it is people like you who treat everyone like crap and complain, what have you done for the good of our soceity lately? complain and b___ch
It turns out that several thousand years ago, early humans were gifted with the unique understanding that being eaten alive, was a bad thing. They did not have to be convinced it was bad; they saw it with their own eyes…. lions; leopards; crocodiles; etc.
Knowing intuitively that they were never going to outrun the lion, these humans decided to stand and fight with the materials available in nature. Natural selection had thus found a man or woman bright enough to invent a weapon, and from that day forward the food chain was permanently altered against the lion and other large predators. Men and women could now go into the forest to forage for food, as a hunter instead of the hunted.
However, some parts of the collective human gene pool did not benefit from this insight. They wear seatbelts; they take vaccinations; they get health checkups; they stay out of rough bars late at night, and they dont swim in alligator infested swamps. Yet, they persist in the notion that state government should do nothing to reduce the odds that someone in SD will be killed by a lion.
I am reasonably sure that the lions would agree with them. This is also call natural selection, by the way.
29. Dogs who attack kids need to get killed. That’s the unwritten pact between men and dogs. It’s unwritten, because dogs can’t read, but most dogs by now know the rules.
Conversely, there is a reason we don’t have pet lions.
Rrrrr-owwrrr.
If a big cat shows up in our yard and the grandkids are around, s/he (the cat) just might be a goner — license or no license — especially if it’s agressive.
I’m not interested in becoming a lion trainer.
Anyone who lives in rural eastern South
Dakota can tell you that we have had mountain lions around here for years. For some reason, the GF&P denied it until recently.