You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - Robert A. Heinlein -
Thursday, October 06, 2022
Well, THAT'S new!
The wife took this picture outside my parents house this morning.
I can promise you that when I was a kid, those things didn't live around here. So they either got pushed here from somewhere else, or the population has gone up quite a bit in Idaho.
I live in Michigan, and used to live in a very rural area. While I never had any animal like this in my yard, my 40 year old son lived with my ex MIL, with his new wife, when they moved here from California, for around one year, taking care of her. The area is the middle of the mitten, around 40 miles from Lake Michigan. He went outside one day, and walked within 10 yards of a cougar, that was stalking a wild turkey, which has exploded in population here in Michigan. He went back inside to get his California born wife, and got his pistol, and they went back out, and the big cat was still out there. He said that he never thought to get a picture of it. After I scolded him about the danger of walking up to any wild predator like that, I contacted our state DNR. They have refused to acknowledge that there are any cougars in the lower peninsula, and only last spring, with a trail camera getting a picture of one, just south of the Mackinaw bridge did they change their mind. In my discussions with them, they explained that they could not say that there was any of the critters lower unless they had total proof. I say that it was political, due to the concern of people not wanting the state saying that there was a danger of little Fido or Tabby getting eaten in the back yard. Because I have other friends who have also seen cougars in the same area. We went through the same thing with black bears in our area, until sightings were so frequent that they had to do something. Then within just a few weeks of each other, there were two bears killed by cars hitting them, near the town of Fremont, which is only 12 miles from my hometown, and then around 40 miles north of there. As sad as it is, we have to admit that often wildlife decisions are made not based on sound science, but based on political pressure. We saw that with the opening of a dove season in Michigan a number of years ago, and then after public complaints, shutting it down. Sorry for the rant, but the beautiful animal that your wife caught the picture of just triggered my memory of my son's encounter with a cougar. Have a great weekend and stay safe.
We have cougars up here as well, and black bear. I've seen the bear, haven't seen the cougars. But with all the prey animals exploding in numbers here (deer, elk, turkey, moose, grouse) it's not hard to see the predator population going up as well.
And honestly, if you want an animal species to survive, you need to come up with recipes and issue permits.
He’s close enough you just stand him up with a grunt or two, wifey smacks him in the nugget with a sledge & ya winch him into the shed. No one’s the wiser. She’s gotta hit him right the first time tho….🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Given that there's plenty of times when she wants to nail ME with the hammer? I'm not taking my chances. "Oh, I don't know what happened, the moose must have hit him! Oh hey, life insurance!"
6 comments:
I live in Michigan, and used to live in a very rural area. While I never had any animal like this in my yard, my 40 year old son lived with my ex MIL, with his new wife, when they moved here from California, for around one year, taking care of her. The area is the middle of the mitten, around 40 miles from Lake Michigan.
He went outside one day, and walked within 10 yards of a cougar, that was stalking a wild turkey, which has exploded in population here in Michigan. He went back inside to get his California born wife, and got his pistol, and they went back out, and the big cat was still out there. He said that he never thought to get a picture of it.
After I scolded him about the danger of walking up to any wild predator like that, I contacted our state DNR. They have refused to acknowledge that there are any cougars in the lower peninsula, and only last spring, with a trail camera getting a picture of one, just south of the Mackinaw bridge did they change their mind.
In my discussions with them, they explained that they could not say that there was any of the critters lower unless they had total proof. I say that it was political, due to the concern of people not wanting the state saying that there was a danger of little Fido or Tabby getting eaten in the back yard. Because I have other friends who have also seen cougars in the same area.
We went through the same thing with black bears in our area, until sightings were so frequent that they had to do something. Then within just a few weeks of each other, there were two bears killed by cars hitting them, near the town of Fremont, which is only 12 miles from my hometown, and then around 40 miles north of there.
As sad as it is, we have to admit that often wildlife decisions are made not based on sound science, but based on political pressure. We saw that with the opening of a dove season in Michigan a number of years ago, and then after public complaints, shutting it down.
Sorry for the rant, but the beautiful animal that your wife caught the picture of just triggered my memory of my son's encounter with a cougar. Have a great weekend and stay safe.
We have cougars up here as well, and black bear. I've seen the bear, haven't seen the cougars. But with all the prey animals exploding in numbers here (deer, elk, turkey, moose, grouse) it's not hard to see the predator population going up as well.
And honestly, if you want an animal species to survive, you need to come up with recipes and issue permits.
Yum!
P2 - if I could get a moose tag....
He’s close enough you just stand him up with a grunt or two, wifey smacks him in the nugget with a sledge & ya winch him into the shed. No one’s the wiser. She’s gotta hit him right the first time tho….🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Given that there's plenty of times when she wants to nail ME with the hammer? I'm not taking my chances. "Oh, I don't know what happened, the moose must have hit him! Oh hey, life insurance!"
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