Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mountain Lions of west Texas

Lonny;
Thanks for the reply and the kind words sir.

Indeed on the sheep, it seems that just about everything that can eat them does so.

We had our local California Bighorns knocked way back during that winter of '96 by a double whammy of snow bringing easy kills from predators and a pasteruella infection they got from some domestic sheep who were being used to clean up a vineyard.

Anyway on our walk today on a road behind our place we saw a few of them again so that was nice.

Thanks again and all the best to you all again.

Dwayne

Sycamore,

To me at least in this reference "LA" is what we "worker bees" called: "Detached service" in Latin America, as we were ordered to NOT even identify the country where were working. - I have for nearly 2 decades kept that promise, if few other promises.

SORRY that that was evidently confusing to at least a FEW members. - It wasn't confusing to me or I think to most people.
(Also, sometimes, even at 72YO, my fingers work/type slower than my mind does.)

yours, tex

GregW,

SORRY, we were ordered "by higher government authority" to say no more about our place of assignment, than "a friendly nation or nations in Latin America", EVER..
(Since you seem to be deemed an authority by numerous members on jaguars, I feel sure that you can easily guess what nation(s) that I'm talking about.)

yours, tex

Lee24...is that you?

Easy now....grin...

Every year there are people I know here in VA that claim they saw a lion.

Problem is 99.99% say they are solid black.

I pondered on this a long time, as some of the people who claimed to have seen them I wouldn't think would just make up a blatant lie.

I honestly think they are seeing house cats and their minds are tricking them into thinking they are much bigger.

GregW,

Lest anyone else be "confused", as I'm reasonably sure that you are NOT (& have not been), as far as I know WT deer don't eat any sort of grass, as they aren't "grazers", but rather are " browsers", who mostly seek out/eat leaves, tender stems/twigs & other "non-grass" items (like our family's EXPENSIVE "calf creep" out of the calf-feeders on our farm. = Deer really LOVE that stuff but I'd sooner not feed them calf creep.) for example..

Axis deer DO happily eat grass & therefore are NOT usually "competitors for food" with native WTs, unless they are near to starvation..

yours, tex

~ 20 - 25 years ago, a rancher about 20 miles north of Las Vegas had a horse attacked, by a mountain lion, in his corral.
As he was once the head of the Brand Board in NM , and the attack was verified by a local vet, and Game & Fish - I'll believe it.
(Not to mention, I have known him, personally since 1960, or so)

"Old Timers" used to claim lions preferred horse flesh to all other - and I'm talking fellows who would be WELL over 100, if still alive.
I used to know a LOT of old codgers - now I are one!

Holston,

IF the "sightings" were at night-fall or later, I do NOT doubt that the "witnesses" BELIEVED that what they saw was "black" or at least "dark-colored" - You eyes play tricks on you at nightfall & after dark.

It's also POSSIBLE (but unlikely) that they saw an escaped "exotic pet". - I'm always "fascinated" that any THINKING adult would try to make a pet out of a lion, tiger, puma, leopard, bear, oselot or even a bobcat but some "loons" certainly try to tame a BIG CAT.
(Cheetahs are the ONE exception, as "rich people for well over 2,000 years, going back to the Egyptian Nobles have "tamed" cheetahs. = Cleopatra had a PAIR of female cheetahs, that she raised from kittens, for "bed fellows".)

yours, tex

I don't remember losing any horses to mountain lions when I was down on the ranch, but we had a few over the years that showed scars from lions that had attacked them. Lions did kill a few full-grown cows every now and then, and almost always around a half-dozen or so calves each year. When we found a fresh livestock kill, we called our local lion hunter and did our best to take the offending critter out.

We always entertained guests for a week or two in late winter each year for lion hunts, because we did have a lot of them. On average, it took us less than a day and a half to hit a good track and catch a lion. I can remember days when we had two by mid-afternoon.

Roy McBride, the dean of Texas lion trappers, told me one time about a rancher who had three horses in a modest sized pasture somewhere out around Alpine. As I recall, one lion persistently stalked those horses as Roy tried everything he knew to get him, but the lion ended up getting all three horses. I may not have the story exactly right--it was a long time ago that he and I had that conversation-- but that was the gist of it.

You obviously forgot your post from a year or so ago to which I referred.

Trail cams by water troughs. None have been photoed but many reported. It would be a monumental achievement.

GregW,

OH REALLY?? - Would you care to PM me that reference?? - I seriously doubt that I ever said, SOBER, such a thing (I was still drinking lots of rye whiskey back then & could have been "sweet as a peach", AKA "drunk as a lord".) though I would suppose that WT could eat grass if there was nothing else to keep from starving.

yours, tex

Talk to mudhen...

He'll make you look much worse than me....

mudhen,

How many more times do you wish me to tell you to call the TPWD department at the Austin HQ & ask them?? = Each time from this instant on, I'll answer your question exactly in the same words.
(In the event that you decide to ask a REAL TPWD biologist, be sure to come back & admit on forum that they said that I was correct about what i was told.)
Unlike some here, I do NOT claim to be "a retired game biologist", "a professional hunting guide from AZ", "an expert" on jaguars and/or "a trained scientist", as I've said at least 2-3 times in the last week.
(I'm just a retired soldier, former peace officer, shooter & hunter & ZILCH more than that.)

Otoh, what I've said on this thread is FACT, as far as I know it, regardless of anyone else's opinion.

yours, tex

My initial thought was that it was a Jaguarundi. I have personally seen it (very briefly) on 4 different occasions, all during daylight hours. The reason I brought up the "black mountain lion" is because my buddy and his family have seen it a lot more than I have and he said it was a black mountain lion. When I think back to the sightings that I experienced over the years, I don't believe it was big enough to be a mountain lion.

I will suggest that my Bud set up some trail cams.

Edit: Whenever I have seen the animal, it has been near dense groves of Blackjack Oaks.

High-Noon,

Pardon me for LAUGHING but when a buddy of mine set up game cameras at his livestock water tanks on their family's land, the main mammals that he photographed were species : HOMO SAPIENS & obviously "illegal aliens". = One comely YL was reportedly "dressed as she was born" & IN one of the water tanks.
(He did get numerous video shots of deer, coons, possums, a ringtail & lots of feral pigs, etc., too but mostly 2-legged "wildlife".)

yours, tex

Well, the folks that would know at TP&WD don't work on Sunday, but I do have limited access to their endangered species data bases, and a quick search didn't turn up any recent element occurrences for jaguars in Texas. Likewise, by an odd coincidence, I have on my computer a digital copy of the current Jaguar Draft Recovery Plan prepared by a very large international panel of scientists and wildlife professionals from the United States, Mexico and all of the other countries within the current and historic range of the jaguar. I spent some time today reading relevant sections and looking at distribution maps and found no mention of recent sightings of jaguars in Texas. Likewise, distribution maps of current populations don't show any closer to Texas than the southern tip of Tamaulipas, and that small outlying population is apparently postulated on the existence of a particular forest type and not necessarily on recent reports of jaguar occurrence. All of the other existing jaguar populations in the U.S. and adjacent Mexico are west of the Continental Divide and the Sierra Madre Occidental.

If you would PM me the name of someone that can direct me to the photos to which you referred, I would be happy to contact them and educate myself about these recent sightings, and I will share the information with the folks that I know on the Jaguar Recovery Team.