Oy: “A mountain lion creeping alongside a Southern California woman’s backyard wall forced road closures as wildlife officials tried to capture it.” For apparently 90 minutes. Do Ventura County police not carry guns? …because if this was a large dog causing this much trouble they’d have simply shot it*. A mountain lion, on the other hand… sure, isolate it, catch it, and release it out in the wild. Whereupon it will simply come back to where all he tasty, slow-moving food is.
Shoot the lion. Keep shooting them. They’ll eventually take the hint. Heck, it’s not like they’re even endangered in California.
Via @MelissaTweets.
Moe Lane
PS: I know that the cops are prohibited from shooting them, sure. But they shouldn’t be.
*Local cops actually did shoot a dog in my town house complex a while back. Something like five, six times. And no, I’m not sure why actual wild predators get more consideration than somebody’s ill-tempered, yet theoretically domesticated, pet.
This will last so long as urban Californians think that mountain lions are something that they’d like as a pet…
Service pistol might well be a poor choice on a puma.
.
Police are familiar with dogs and how they move. A human can hand to hand a big dog. Unarmed human versus mountain lion, no tricks, and the lion wins.
.
Felines are like neither canines or humans. Cats are twitch and ambush, but have low endurance.
.
If you shoot a cat, but don’t stop or kill it, it may cover ground faster than you’d think, and tear you up. Mountain lions are big enough that it’d be a good idea to bring enough gun, and someone who knows how to use it on that target.
.
If you do not injure it, and keep it from thinking it has an easy kill, it might be very likely to not spend the energy.
.
Getting a hold of a capture team may be as long as getting a hold of a reliable shooter, especially if they don’t have a predator control officer.
.
Given the state, the capture team is probably a better choice to manage liability for all the idiot bleeding hearts.
Point of order: Police cruisers carry shotguns and/or Rifles for situations where pistols aren’t enough gun.
Shotguns do work just fine against mountain lions. I had a friend who would have gotten mauled, if not killed, had that not been the case.
Its kind of ironic. A cop visiting your house or passing through your yard can shoot your barking Chihuahua or cowering Labrador if he feels threatened but can’t shoot a giant claw covered death machine?
Speaking of Mountain Lions, one was found in the bluegrass of Kentucky for the first time since the civil war.
However, the authorities are from the Moe Lane school of large cat management.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/19/officer-kill-mountain-lion-not-spotted-in-kentucky-since-before-civil-war/
I do wonder where it came from though. I suspect that there is now an established population to the east and south, and this one was a far traveler.
For the most part, they’re solitary animals and don’t intrude much on each other’s turf. The average range a cat claims is about 20 square miles. So even a small population bump can push individual members a long way.
.
For my money, coyotes are worse. We’ve got a few en our area, they’ve made a run or three at my chickens and my neighbor’s lambs and kids (goat-type). Haven’t gotten a shot at them yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Until the moon cooperates, the dogs will be pulling sentry duty.
Just remember, after you shoot them, hang them on the fence, as a warning to the others. At least, that’s what the folks out in the country around here do.
With them currently sporting a winter coat, doing that would be a waste of a nice pelt.
.
But in related localish news: http://magicvalley.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/despite-opposition-predator-derby-moving-forward/article_390eaea4-e502-5fb9-998e-11584e0eeb9d.html