Shut Your Door At Night

[Loves2Shoot]

Taken from the local paper:

Cougar enters Bend resident's apartment

Published: June 4, 2003

By Lisa Rosetta

The Bulletin

When Linda Bertolani lets her cat out at night, she leaves the front door cracked open so her pet can creep back in at his pleasure.

On Sunday night, a cougar also used the entrance and announced with a high-pitched scream he was in her kitchen, she said Tuesday.

The cougar had snuck into her apartment at the 61000 block of Blakely Road near Fred Meyer's, she said, and it had her 16-year-old Himalayan cat, Sebastian, dangling from his mouth.

"You should have seen his (Sebastian's) fur flying," Bertolani said of her feline companion who's recovering at home.

She reported the incident to the Bend Police Department and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, but the cougar leapt across a fence and vanished before authorities arrived, Bertolani said.

"It's just not like a regular cat," she said. "I just wanted people to know they're on the prowl."

Corey Heath, a Deschutes Wildlife District biologist, said no other cougar sightings in the area have been reported since Bertolani's call.

Cougars are most likely to be sighted in the fall or winter months, he said. The last sighting before Bertolani's was three weeks ago in the Deschutes River Woods, he said.

In most instances, cougars, which have home ranges of more than 30 miles, are gone by the time an agency responds. In rare cases the cats may be relocated, Heath said, but most often they are destroyed if they're a threat to human safety.

While cougar sightings are fairly common, reports of attacks on humans are not, he said.

Homeowners who feel imminently threatened can legally destroy the animals during hunting season — Jan. 1 through May 31, and Aug. 1 through Dec. 31 — if they have a hunting permit with a cougar tag, Heath said. A cougar may also be shot if it kills livestock, he added.

If residents run into one of the cats unprepared, they should follow a few basic guidelines to ensure their safety.

"Immediately at the encounter, what you don't want to do is turn and run," Heath said. "That triggers their chasing instinct."

The wildlife biologist said the best course of action is to stay still and try to scare the big cat away by making noise, throwing rocks or waving around a coat. (I say shoot the dang thing, screw the making noise and throwing rocks!!!)

[Duane Thomas]

Years ago, Petersen's Handguns ran an article titled "Mountain Lion Attacks and the Guns You Need to Stop Them," on the increasing frequency of cougar attacks in urban areas, some leading to human death, and just what handguns would be most suitable to dispatch said carnivorous feline should it have designs on your person.

I say shoot the dang thing, screw the making noise and throwing rocks!!!)

I'm with you.

[EricW]

If that freaks you out get this:

How would you like to meet a cougar in the middle of freakin' nowhere, in the pitch dark, with the meeting occurring literally face to face? I was elk hunting in North Idaho one fall and was walking out of the forest to my car along a logging road. I was walking on the uphill side of the road with dense woods on my left. I heard a strange noise, turned to my left, and saw a giant head come out of the darkness. It was attached to a not-so-petite Mountain Lion. We were literally at contact distance.

I was bowhunting at the time, it was after legal hunting hours, so all my arrows were in the quiver, and my (illegally carried) handgun was buried deep in my fanny pack. So all I could do was to keep walking and act like I was minding my own business. The cougar had been hunting me all day. I had heard nearby movement in the bushes, but assumed that it was nearby deer or elk.

I have now decided some laws were meant to be ignored. The blaster goes with me everywhere in the woods - AND - it's immediately accessible.

The part about only being able to shoot a cat during hunting season is total crapola. A guy in Oregon just shot three cats in his back yard - which were hunting his grandchildren - with no tags and was not charged. What does that tell you?

[SiG Lady]

"...at night, she leaves the front door cracked open..."

Now, what kind of a dumb-ass habit is THAT..??!!

At that rate it sure could've been lots worse than a cougar, lady!!!

[Sam]

"It's just not like a regular cat," she said. "I just wanted people to know they're on the prowl.

What?? They're not like a regular cat?

Now I understand why, on our recent trip to Bend, we saw signs in the mountain passes that read:

"DO NOT PASS THE SNOW PLOW ON THE RIGHT".

Oh, I don't mean to imply that we don't have dumb people in Wyoming too. We just like to let them learn from experience.

[Nik Habicht]

Wyoming: Where the winters are harsh and the surviving population has the highest cumulative I.Q. in the Nation......

'cause all the non-survivors are candidates for the Darwin awards.....

[Sam]

I dunno Nik. Collectively, we can't seem too bright for "surviving" here. It's the 6th of June and the rain is supposed to change to snow around mid-night. No kidding! (Shouldn't we be out waterskiing somewhere.) Never mind, some of us probably are.

I'm going into town tonight just to watch the Tourons on the pilgrimage to Yellowstone. They'll undoubtably be a few down at the truckstop shivering in their bermuda shorts and Birkenstocks. Even though it's only going to get down into the mid-thirties, I think I'll wear my North Face parka and Elmer Fud hat. The cosutme will add a bit more realism to the story when we sit in the booth next to them and recollect, just loud enough, about that poor family from Alabama that was found frozen to death last 4th of July. "Sad it was, sad indeed.........say, did you folks ever hear the story of the Donner Party ?"

[Singlestack]

I have now decided some laws were meant to be ignored. The blaster goes with me everywhere in the woods - AND - it's immediately accessible.

I hear ya on that one EW.

Where I bowhunt, Feral hogs are a real problem. I'm scared to death of them. Once. I was crawling on my hands and knees on a game trail through a "push-up" (huge, long piles of scrub brush and usless trees that foresters leave behind after clear cutting) that was like a tunnel through a dense web of briars. The "tunnel" was about 25~30 ft long and about halfway through it I heard something comming towards me and I looked up to see a 300lb Feral boar Hog sporting 3in tusks trotting right at me in this tunnel. I screamed "HEY!" and the damn thing kept comming. I pulled my Champion out of my shoulder holster and started blasting. It fell dead 3 feet in front of me after 7 rounds to the head. These are smart, mean, and fast animals with weapons on their heads. I never bowhunt without a sidearm since that day.

[Duane Thomas]

Bet you were pumpin' enough adrenaline after that one you didn't go to sleep for two days.

[EricW]

SS -

I'll go head to head with a cougar over a boar any day of the week. I've heard horror stories about tangling with those things - like taking a solid hit with full-house 44 mag and hardly even noticing....