So, tomorrow I'll say a quiet goodbye and apology to a beautiful animal and hello to my grandchildren. What an instructive and conflicted experience this has been!


Good idea !

Well, it's not a sad end, yet. The big guy stayed away from the trap, but the neighbor's dog barked all night - which she had done the same night the cat came up on the deck. I suspect the cat was nearby, but smart enough to notice something odd is going on... Either that, or caged dead beaver does not appeal. I have to admit to two opposing feelings with this news!

The mountain lion cage triggered a memory, which I used GE to illustrate: I was on a fire in Glacier N.P. in 1994. We were "spiked out", i.e. camping in the woods, for two weeks, with food and supplies helicoptered in to our location. It was one of the most remote locations I think I've ever been in. You can still see the burn scar in the GE imagery, for which I created a polygon for the perimeter.

There were two bear traps at our spike camp. One trap was to put all the food items inside, and was closed and locked each night. The other trap was baited and left open. The traps looked like this.




We slept in nylon tents, and on several nights, I could hear a bear whuffing around in the dark, a few feet from me, looking for food. They left us alone, but on the couple nights I heard the bears, I didn't sleep much.

It's a nice thought to think of huge apex predators like mountain lions and grizzly bears in the abstract, as majestic icons of our wilderness heritage. It's a completely different thought to have a real live specimen a few feet away from you, with nothing but a nylon tent or a window between you and a nasty mauling.

I hope they catch your kittycat, Diane, before anybody gets hurt.

Takes me back a few years, putting up posters warning of wild dogs and big cat sightings near camping areas. Then on the way back from the pub midnight mass howling/sniffing and growing etc near the sleeping campers/junior firemen.

This is not funny and I am ashamed of the sleepless nights this could have caused

best regards

MM

Sounds like good clean fun. Nobody got hurt...

Actually, it's very funny, MM - just the sort of thing we all like to do when we're young and `crazy. And it's mandatory to do that sort of thing to the greenhorns! The scariest real-live sound I've heard is a stomping-snorting-cracking combination at night, while on my way back to my tent in Prairie Creek State Park (No. Calif). Of course, any sound in the bushes at night is going to scare the ____ out of me. I think it was an elk, as Prairie Creek is famous for them.

Two days after the trap is set and still no cat. My son heard a mountain lion scream an indeterminate distance away last night when he was working in his garage. It's an out-building some distance from his house. He high-tailed into the house for the night. They called to tell me this latest excitement, but with my well-insulated walls I hadn't heard it. The State hunter, Willie, told them there are now four men tracking it, as there have been numerous sightings this week reported by residents.

Marko - Thanks for the scary camp story and beartrap photo. I like how it instructs us not to go inside! No kidding!

I had hoped this would not be dragging on like this... I guess it's time I gave a link to the general area I'm talking about.

Hang there Diane,I bet they get him over the weekend....If not I'll come up and get him on my way to the Plex next week

Stop and get Lrae first, the Wizard might have a magic talisman to help the trackers.

I'll be coming from the North.But I could bring a friend.


All kidding aside,I know your worried So if it does get bad I'll come by. ( Lrae's out of the country )

wow.. mountain lion, SWAT sharp-shooter, dead grandchild, high powered rifle, willie the animal tracker, fresh kill, pump-type shotgun, 12-gauge Remington 275.. that's some exciting story, diane.. only thing ever happens over here is a sheep crusade once in a while.