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.

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.

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.

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”?

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.

Well, that changes EVERYTHING.

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.

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.

GFP makes cat squat off lion licenses. not worth the hassle.

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.

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

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?

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’

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.