This photo was caught on a hunter's game cam at his feeder near Chipley, Florida (about 75 miles from here)
Panther Caught on Game Cam
- Thread starter santaman2000
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That's impressive! My family emigrated to Naples Florida 8 years ago and I often think about getting out and about over there when I go to see them. Pictures like this put me well off lol
Can I ask a serious question though.. When you guys go bush crafting do you take a firearm with you just in case the wildlife turns nasty?
Luke
Can I ask a serious question though.. When you guys go bush crafting do you take a firearm with you just in case the wildlife turns nasty?
Luke
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The cougar (Puma concolor), also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, or catamount
Thought I would check first before posting the same thought
Thought I would check first before posting the same thought
The cougar (Puma concolor), also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, or catamount
Thought I would check first before posting the same thought
Yep. Also Painter. The Florida subspecies is particularly known as the Florida Panther. Whether it's a true subspecies or just a mutation from inbreeding is a debate in itself.
Yep. Pretty much everywhere I go, but not necessarily for the wildlife.
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Panther is the black ones, jaguar, leopard etc, some sort of anomoly, like the white lion tigers etc. Do you get black Mountain lions?
Luke, I absolutely do not take a firearm with me. We are very fortunate in North America. Humans are the biggest, baddest predators in the woods and the other animals are afraid of us. There are always exceptional cases, and I do carry bear spray when I hike in bear country.
But mountain lions pose little threat to human beings. I'll explain why. In my area (California), humans have only lived here for 12,000 years. So humans and cougars did not co-evolve. Mountain lions evolved to hunt deer and people are not really on the menu. Contrast this with Africa, where a healthy lion will hunt a person. In California, only sick, old, or very young animals that have trouble hunting will attack a person. With the number of hikers we have in California, the backcountry would be littered with bodies if the cats decided to start eating people. There is an old saying among California hikers. "If you hike long enough, you may not have seen a mountain lion but one has certainly seen you!"
Mountain lions are stealth predators. So if you see the cat, you are way ahead of the game and probably safe. It's the mountain lion you don't see that can harm you. Therefore, I remain vigilant but don't worry overmuch about fighting off mountain lions. I have a simple plan if I'm attacked: I plan to give it indigestion!
Occasionally, there are attacks that no one can explain. Here's one that happened near me (Mountain Lion Attacks Six Year Old Boy). A young cat grabbed a child from the midst of his family in broad daylight. The adults chased off the cat. The child recovered, but authorities destroyed the cat to protect the public. The article includes tips for remaining safe in cat country.
I enjoy tracking mountain lions a great deal. I feel thrilled and privileged to see signs of them when I'm hiking. Here is some additional reading if you're interested.
http://www.natureoutside.com/mountain-lion-tracks-learn-to-read-them/
http://www.natureoutside.com/feline-tracking/
http://www.natureoutside.com/trailing-a-mountain-lion/
Hope this helps answer your question.
- Woodsorrel
Woodsorrel. thanks for the in depth reply, I'm not sure I could get the thought of something like a mountain lion pouncing if I'm honest! I'm sure you know from experience as you've said there is nothing to worry about, but I'm with Santaman2000 just for the peace of mind LOL
Great picture though guys!
Luke
Great picture though guys!
Luke
Great pic. It's a shame alien big cats in the UK are invisible to trail camera's!
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Sent from my SM-A500FU using Tapatalk
Ironically the incidence seems to be increasing. Here's a partial list of fatal attacks since 1990 (only the fatal attacks, not total attacks) Every year I read of at least a couple of attacks; usually of one attacking a mountain biker, skier, etc (provoking a prey drive it would appear) or a lot more are occurring in suburbs.
[h=2]Before 1970[edit][/h]
| Name, age, gender | Date | Location, comments |
|---|---|---|
| Arthur Dangle, 7, male | June 19, 1890 | Killed by two cougars while playing near his home in Quartz Valley, Siskiyou County, California |
| Child, 2, male | January 31, 1909 | Killed by mountain lion near Balboa, California. The boy was attacked while in a tent.[SUP][4][/SUP] |
| Isola Kennedy, 38, female; Earl Wilson, 10, male | July 5, 1909 | Rabid cougar attacked a woman and child in Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County, California. Both victims died from rabies, not from the physical injuries. This is the only instance of a double fatality and the only instance where the victims succumbed to disease rather than the injuries sustained in the attack. |
| Child, 3, male | August 21, 1911 | Killed by mountain lion inside family home near Brownsville, Texas. |
| Jimmie Fehlhaber, 13, male | December 17, 1924 | Attacked and killed in Olema, Washington as he tried to outrun a cougar for about 100 yards (91 m) |
| Dominic Taylor, 7, male | June 1949 | Attacked and killed while walking on a beach in Kyuquot, British Columbia[SUP][5][/SUP] |
| Elena Salzar, 5, female | June 1953 | Attacked, dragged off, and eaten in Tampico, Mexico[SUP][6][/SUP] |
| Woman, unknown age, female | 1951 | Killed in Tampico, Mexico.[SUP][6][/SUP] |
[h=2]1970s[edit][/h]
| Name, age, gender | Date | Location, comments |
|---|---|---|
| Lawrence Wells, 12, male | January 1971 | Attacked and killed in Lytton, British Columbia by male cougar while playing with his sisters |
| Kenneth Clark Nolan, 8, male | January 20, 1974 | Killed by a 3 year old female cougar in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico |
| Thomas Harris, 26, male | July 1976 | Killed by a two-year-old male cougar near Gold River on British Columbia's Vancouver Island. He was dragged over 800 yards (730 m) in the snow. |
| Matilda Mae Samuel, 7, female | July 1976 | Killed by cougar near Gold River, British Columbia Killed while walking on a road.[SUP][7][/SUP] |
1980s =
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[h=2]1990s[edit][/h]
| Name, age, gender | Date | Location, comments |
|---|---|---|
| Scott Lancaster, 18, male | January 14, 1991 | Killed while jogging a familiar route on a hill above Clear Creek High School in Idaho Springs, Colorado.[SUP][8][/SUP] |
| Jeremy Williams, 7, male | May 1992 | Attacked and killed in Kyuquot, British Columbia by a young female cougar while playing in the school yard.[SUP][9][/SUP] |
| Barbara Barsalou Schoener, 40, female | April 23, 1994 | Long distance runner and Placerville resident was attacked and killed while jogging on the American River Canyon Trail in California's Auburn State Recreation Area.[SUP][10][/SUP][SUP][11][/SUP] |
| Iris M. Kenna, 56, female | December 10, 1994 | Killed while hiking alone near Cuyamaca Peak in California's Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.[SUP][11][/SUP][SUP][12][/SUP] |
| Cindy Parolin, 36, female | August 19, 1996 | Mother killed while defending her 6 year old son on a horse back riding trip in Tulameen, British Columbia.[SUP][13][/SUP] |
| Mark Miedema, 10, male | July 17, 1997 | Killed by an adult female cougar in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park while hiking when he got ahead of his family.[SUP][14][/SUP] |
| Jaryd Atadero, 3, male | October 2, 1999 | Disappeared while hiking with a group of his father's friends on the Big South Trail in Poudre Canyon, west of Fort Collins, Colorado.[SUP][15][/SUP] In June 2003, his clothing was discovered, 500 feet (150 m) up a cliff above the trail where he vanished, by hikers.[SUP][16][/SUP] Jaryd's fragmentary human remains were found with the clothing.[SUP][17][/SUP] A wildlife biologist found the damage to the clothing was consistent with mountain lion predation.[SUP][18][/SUP] |
[h=2]2000s[edit][/h]
| Name, age, gender | Date | Location, comments |
|---|---|---|
| Frances Frost, 30, female | January 2, 2001 | This Canmore, Alberta resident was killed by a cougar while skiing on Cascade Fire Road just north of Banff National Park in Alberta[SUP][19][/SUP] |
| Mark Jeffrey Reynolds, 35, male | January 8, 2004 | Attacked and killed while mountain biking at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in southern Orange County, California[SUP][11][/SUP][SUP][20][/SUP] |
| Robert Nawojski, 55, male | June 24, 2008 | Searchers found his body on this date near his mobile home in Pinos Altos, New Mexico. Investigators concluded that he had been attacked and killed by a cougar several days earlier.[SUP][21][/SUP] |
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Panther is just a regional name. As for black mountain lions; I've never seen one but there are recollections from the old folks in the Southeastern states. I've no idea on their validity though. It's entirely possible such recollections (if true) are from the last jaguars before their territory shrank (there's supposed to be at least one jaguar still in Arizona)
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Thanks for posting the statistics, Santaman2000!
Does going from 4 victims in the 1970s to 7 victims in the 1990s constitute a trend?
We should bear in mind that these numbers are trivial when compared to the real scourge of the wilderness. From 1999-2007 bee stings killed 508 Americans!
How many of us wear full bug suits when we hike?
I worry about hypothermia, falls, and getting lost. Mountain Lions are way down the list.
- Woodsorrel
Does going from 4 victims in the 1970s to 7 victims in the 1990s constitute a trend?
We should bear in mind that these numbers are trivial when compared to the real scourge of the wilderness. From 1999-2007 bee stings killed 508 Americans!
How many of us wear full bug suits when we hike?
I worry about hypothermia, falls, and getting lost. Mountain Lions are way down the list.
- Woodsorrel
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Not real high on my list either TBH. Like I said earlier, my firearms aren't particularly for panthers. The photo was taken reasonably close to here but gators are more of a concern to me than panthers and as you said, bees more than gators.
The interesting thing I found in the "trend" about the stats was that there were only 15 fatal attacks in the 90 years prior to 1990 (or about 1 every 6 years) but it jumped to 10 fatal attacks in the next 18 years (or 1 in less than every 2 years) Add to that what I said about these being only the fatal attacks and the fact that many of them weren't while out in the woods (2 of the fatal attacks since 1990 were closer to home; 1 was a child at school and the other near the man's home)
The point of the OP being that the panther/cougar population has been reclaiming it's old territory over the last 30 years and they've spread back into almost every county in Florida (at least in limited numbers0 and into most states East of the Mississippi river. They're also showing less reluctance to venture near, or into populated areas. Their population is growing and their behavior is changing. Most importantly, with any luck at all we'll have a population in Florida that will sustain harvesting again within a decade or two. Especially if the recovery of the Black Bear is any indication (this year will be the first legal bear hunt in Florida in over 20 years)
As for hypothermia, we've had a single case in the early 1990s when 2 Ranger students died on a training course. Apart from that, there hasn't been a single case I'm aware of in Florida.
I know I'm misquoting you, but I don't reckon your firearm will be much use against bees either
Interesting thread.
I know I'm misquoting you, but I don't reckon your firearm will be much use against bees either
Interesting thread.
Maybe not to you pard'ner, but i'm so quick I can shoot the wings of a gnat at thurty paces, the down side being to this method is I have to carry a hell of a lot of bullets.
I know I'm misquoting you, but I don't reckon your firearm will be much use against bees either
Interesting thread.
LOL. Nope.
I was thinking the same thing; about the bullets.
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