Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Mountain Lions in Texas ... evidence ?

I'm glad someone from GA spoke up. Any Game and Fish person in GA will tell you that there are no Panthers in GA. Panthers are the GA name for mountain lions.

But, my wife and I were together when a large one ran out in the road, turned away from us and ran straight away for about 100 feet, the went into the bushes on the opposite side of the road.

It came out t of thick woods and ran down a long, steep bank, before it got to the road.

I stopped, and looked at the tracks. GA game and fish has wanted proof, in the form of a picture of tracks. These would have been good proof if I had a camera with me.

This was in N. GA, not too far from North Carolina, and it was definitely black, or at least very dark, not the tawny color seen in pictures.

Bears live in the Chisos, Davis and Guadalupe Mountains, for sure. Very likely occur in smaller adjacent ranges such as the North Rosillos and Delaware Mountains, as well. The Del Carmens in Mexico across from Big Bend NP have good populations, too.

I saw a black bear a few years back in E. Texas. I was driving across a bayou on Caddo Lake on the TX / Lousianna border. Stopped the truck to get a better
look, to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Yep, it was a black bear all right. Just wished I had a camera handy.

If you want to see a Mountain Lion, just go hunting & leave your camera at home!

LOL.
Yet they've decided it's illegal to shoot one... explain that.




I don't doubt that. Hence the "AFAIK".
What little I know about albinism, leucism, anerythrism, etc is from breeding pythons, boas, colubrids, and crotalids. New mutations never show up in the next generation. Both parent animals must carry the genetic defect before offspring show it (on the outside).

Recommend me a good book or three on the topic, I'm all ears.

ps

Nebraska denied the presence of lions for years, decades even, no matter how many reports came in or from whom.

It wasn't until a guy with game and parks commission hunting near Basset stumbled across one near his hunting spot covering a deer carcass with leaves and sticks. He set up his trail cam and went to hunt elsewhere. He posted it all in Nebraskaland Magazine and that finally heralded the end of their ridiculous persistent denial.

A fellow that I know has property down by The Page area. He said he saw one while sitting in his deer blind last year.


North Dakota was the same way, denial. The Duck Deputies, Muskrat Marshals or what ever you want to call them got pissed when a guy would ask them about it. Then all of the sudden there was a season.

having read this whole thread, i find everyone comments intresting, i live on a large ranch in south tex. and seeing lion is not rare, we find lion kills once or twice a month,and see a lion at least every couple of months,they do kill hogs and deer, we dont shoot them here as i like having them on the ranch, its great fun to see them now and then and they really dont do any imporant damage to anything.in all my years as a rancher i have never seen a black lion. rio7

I would never consider shooting a mountain lion either. Same for bobcats. Under normal circumstances.
Feral pigs and coyotes don't get the same pass.

stumpy

For a quickie on gene frequencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy%E2%80%93Weinberg_principle
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_genetics

They will totally decimate your annual fawn crop! We don't shoot them either, on our ranch. But they will affect your deer herd population, eventually. Fawns are much easier prey than baby piglets.

The landowner on my deer lease said he'd be thrilled if we shot a lion. I'm looking for a 400mm lens, myself

I used to have a bunch of hunters who claimed they were seeing packs of Hyenas.......................

Okay.

Alan

about 4 years ago, I had a group of hunters that were hunting our place in Pecos for the first time. One of them strapped a trial camera to a yucca and left it up one night. He had this picture on it the next morning. That was the best advertisement I could hope for. They've been back every year since. (The photo was sent to me as a PDF, so I took a photo of the pdf so I could save it to photobucket.)

I hope to kill a lion out there some day, but it hasn't happend yet.

Roger, did James still have his cats when you knew him?

Alan

Willow, about how far from the Pecos River was that pic taken?

oh yeah i picked up many a road kill to feed them, and a lot of chicken and rice from heb.

Well to be fair you never know in TX. I once hd to stop for a cape buffalo in the road in the hill country and had to assist TXPWD with a Tiger hunt once as well.

That picture was taken in Pecos County, probably 25 or 30 miles south of the river/stinky draw.

i know a guy who killed a eland on his lease, they had no idea where it came from.

We've killed two fallow deer and one sika on the place over the years. Nobody around here has any that we know of.