A Night Visitor

These are three pics from a guy that lives on the other side of the mountain from us....And the DNR says we don't have them! HAH!

#2

#3..enough to make the hair on the back of your neck standup!

wow!

I don't think I'd want to be even on the "safe" side of that glass!! (What's DNR? Department of....???)

natural resources, i think...

Dept of Natural Resources maybe?

That is too cool and scary!

Onalee

Yep, The Dept. of Natural Resources.

Nice one!

Really Cool!!

We've been hearing a couple up behind the house for a couple of springs, but they are quite illusive. I have "smelled" them up in the woods while clearing brush, but never seen one. A guy up the valley from us (about 8 miles away) found a female w/ 2 cubs in his barn. He called the DNR to ask what he needed to do or that maybe they could come & move them, as he needed to get in the barn to get some hay for feed. The DNR said that there was no such thing here. (HaH) The guy said that he needed in that barn & he figured he would have to kill her to get in there...The DNR said "No, the big cat is on the endangered species list". ( Now ain't that funny!) Well, the guy w/ the barn said that if we didn't have them around here that there wasn't anything to have on an endangered species list! He went to the barn w/ a gun & she & the cubs were gone. He said that he hasn't seen her since. I do believe that there are some things that hte DNR are not willing to "let out".

Very cool!
(Because they are so shy and reclusive, I bet there are many more hiding closer than you think, hehe.)

Try sending the photographic evidence to the DNR? If need be, take them to the site to convince them the photos weren't taken somewhere else!

Resin

PS spellcheck: 'elusive' ;-)

What is also interesting is that that cat has a distinctly notched right ear.
Anyone else see that?

No, I don't see it...What would a tag mean? That it's planted or someone is keeping track of it?

Maybe it's just from fighting with another cat or animal....

I just meant that was a good identifying mark, if the OP ever gets anymore pictures..that way you could tell if it was the same cat or a different one..sorry for the confusion!! :)

I see what you mean! Good thought!

Yes, A great idea.

The DNR in michigan still denies that there are wild cats here, but last summer they put up warning signs in the National Park to be wary of them. I have seen one twice around here, but they've never bothered anything in this neighborhood. There was an attack on a horse a few years ago one county over, but there was also someone with several "tame" cats in that area and I would be more likely to blame an escapee that a totally wild cat. They are usually smarter that that and don't attack anything that they can't kill fairly easy and when they do attack, they finish the job. They are beautiful animals and have a place here just like everything else. WHat a lucky sighting, no matter how scary it was. You probably won't get to see it often as their range can be up to 350 square miles. Unless they have cubs, they move around a lot.

How cool is that!! But be careful!

Music
Your pictures and post have piqued my interest. Being a city boy,
I have only seen this type of animal on TV or movies. Wild animals
can sometimes have a large range and geographically people will
call animals different names. What do you call this animal? Wild-
cat, mountain lion, puma, cougar or?? Also, when you said you
"smelled" them, did you mean you sensed an animal was there or
do they have a peculiar odor? I hope my curiosity doesn't kill the
cat. LOL

fleur_guy, around here we call them mountain lion or cougar. And the smell that I am referring to is cat pee. Anyone that has a cat can attest that it is a rank odor. Just imagine it coming from a 80+ lb. cat!
I did, however, find out something disturbing yesterday. The fella that sent out these pics (to his "friends") has down loaded them from the internet! The local Roanoke Times published this yesterday in the sports section of the paper. http://www.roanoke.com/outdoors/wb/149414 Needlees to say he has some "hot" friends.
But we do have 2 for sure. A neighbor has seen a female w/ 2 cubs...and another (whom I know to be very truthful) says that a female comes thru his front yard once a month. I think that I may show him how to use my digital camera...he doesn't even own one! But that would prompt me to get one! :D
Had the guy that downloaded them from the internet sent me this pic I would have immediately know he was a liar....he does not have this kind of tiled floor! I found All of these pics on Snope.com

When my husband was still in the Navy a group of wives flew to France to meet up with them. On a mountain above Toulon there is a small zoo that you took a tram to get to, it had a few tigers in cages, not nearly as secure as in the US. One of our guys want to get his photo taken in front of the tigers so he stood as close to the wire enclosure as he could.The big male tiger looked at him and then turned his back to George and sprayed like an old tom cat. They wouldn't let him back on the tram and he had to walk all the way down the mountain. We could smell him for days.

Yoo bad about the photos. Now we see how urban ledgends get started.

Found the originals at Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/patiomountainlion.asp

Seems the photos were taken in Wyoming, where Pumas are fairly common.

Resin

And I would think if they are a common site there...the deer population is not as abundant as it is here.

Wonderful pictures. I love the open mouth one.

As jylgaskin states DNR here was saying there were no cougars here, but last Oct finally put cougars on their web site for sightings, scat, and sign. They are out there, but can go a lifetime never seeing one.

In the spring last year, I smelled the strong oder several times and the dog would go crazy around the spot. But it is sooo bad, you don't want to investigate.

I read where they will summer in one place and winter in another. I haven't seen any signs that he is back in the area. "If" that is what is around.
Got my trail camera this year.

Hope you can get a pic! :D And you're right the smell is aweful!

So how did you get your picture? Just put the camera where you saw activity? or did you use some kind of bait?

The pics aren't mine...a "friend" supposedly took them at his house. The very next day that he e-mailed the pics to me and the local paper (posted above) wrote an article about it. My "friend" lied about the whole thing (pictures, anyway). He had gotten the pics off of the internet site Snopes. com.
Yes, I know that we have them, but I'm not going to plagiarize! And that's what he has done.
Talk about some p.o.ed people!

Sorry.

It is a shame they feel they have to try & dupe people!

I entirely agree, nanny.