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I guess I'm going to have to start carrying something more than just my 9mm while out fishing the Little Mahoning fly fishing project. Friends have been having problems with their horses and wound up shooting a cougar that took out one of their horses. They said there are more in the area. Usually just carry my 9mm with birdshot for snakes, but will have to go a little bigger now i guess.
Better to be safe. I've heard of cougars in PA, but I've never seen one.
I'm sure the Game commission will say "There are no cougars in PA." like they did about the coyotes that they released a few years back... event hough your friend has a dead one. Would a 9MM FMJ take down a cougar, or just make him mad?
I don't think I'd choose FMJ for shooting cougars. I think a quality HP would be better. Shooting is like real estate. The 3 most important things are: location, location, location.
Ed
I am convinced we have them in Eastern Virginia altho the game department says not. Too many credible people have told me they've seen them and with our monstrous deer herd, it makes sense.
The PA game commish actually brought and released several to the area I lived in to control the over populated deer herd on a large tract of private land next to Bald Eagle State forest in Snyder County... Coyotes too.. Seen a few on Jacks Mtn. so I know there not just there, Their there in decent numbers and have been for years.
I didn't originally believe it, but I spoke to some high rollers in the insurance business and I was told the PA Game Commission and Insurance agencies have released coyotes to control the deer herd. They're actually eliminating the herd. I certainly believe it now.
Bruce
Nice area up there lastchance! Will be in that area this weekend for a family event held there yearly, My father in law is also a PA transplant here in NY he comes from your area. Hows the creek coming along after that derailment/spill the other year? Father in law was Not pleased....
Back from yet another non fishing weekend spent in Elk,Cameron,Potter County areas of PA.... Visit this time every year for the past five...Creeks all looked good (As we rolled over or by them).... Not a single fisher person seen though plying these waters??? Whats up with that?? weather was cool all weekend These creeks broke or sumpin?...lol Gotta get info on a Cabin for a week at Parker Dam for next year n change this whole situation! Still have yet to see a single member of the PA Elk heard to date also.. N I look believe me!
If Lastchance is correct and the insurance lobby has enough clout to reduce their claims by this method I thiink we should have a complaint. Wouldn't it seem more ethical to permit hunting on the overpopulated private land?
If the insurance companies were responsible for having cougars released, if one of these cats would happen to attack a hiker, fisherman, biker, etc. would they be liable?
don't know anything about insurance companies... But I have always found it funny that one needs purchase a State licence to hunt Their deer... But if one of their deer runs infront of your vehicle... They are suddenly not their deer and simply wild animals and can't be owned...
The tract I spoke of will doubtfully ever be open to public.. I hear for enough cash one can purchase a permit to hunt buck only on sections of it.. It's been closed to all Doe hunting for many years.. I've seen first hand the effects this has to neighboring crop land.. whole corn feilds leveled to stubble over night! it's bad enough that taking deer for crop damage doesn't even dent the hords of deer that can be seen under a light at night.. Game Commish actually offered to pay to have it opened for this reason..
Ok fellas I just have to respond to some of these comments. First of all I don't mean to offend anyone but common sense tells us that claims of the DNR releasing cougars or anything else to help control deer herds is pretty far fetched. We have had people saying this same thing here in Iowa for quite a few years and it is absolutely untrue. Just put a little thought into it, how many cougars would it take to make a dent in the deer population if you claim that killing deer for crop deprivation has no impact. Just a couple of facts, a cougar will usually feed on a kill until it is consumed before killing again. Most experts agree that a cougar will usually kill less than 1 deer per week and probably more closer to 1 every 2 weeks with other smaller game filling in the gaps. Cougars are also very territorial with a breeding pair claiming a home territory of between 25 and 50 square miles. Which means that the males will drive off any other males that come with in their area and the females do the same. So if you have 2 cats that will kill maybe 100 deer per year in 50 square miles how much population control can that represent?
billknepp you should also know that deer can not reduce a corn field to stubble over night. Deer do not eat corn stalks but only the ears and in many cases they don't even pull the ears from the stocks. They will just eat the kernels right off the cob and even leave the husk mostly in place. Deer also don't eat the small early corn shoots either because they don't digest them and in the spring of the year when these shoots are sprouting the deer are feeding on new alfalfa or clover and new succulent grass shoots. I can't speak to any over population of deer in Pa but I can speak on the subject here in Iowa. Because some people felt that we had a population problem we have for several years been over harvesting our doe population and as a result our deer harvest and the quality of our deer herd has declined drastically over the last 5 years. In 2005 we had about 350,000 hunters harvest 211,000 deer for a success ratio of about 60 per cent. In 2009 we had about 400,000 hunters harvest only about 136,000 deer for a success ratio of only a little over 30 per cent. Also of that 136,000 deer almost 70 percent were antler less deer, both does and button or shed bucks, so our trophy buck harvest has fallen even worse than the decline in the over all harvest. As the harvest continues to decline I believe that license sales will fall off as well causing a net lose of DNR revenue, which is already in very short supply.
As far as I am concerned and knowing many DNR people in Iowa and a few in Mo and Ill I don't believe that any Department of Natural Resources would ever introduce large predators like cougars, or coyotes, or bears, or wolves in order to control any game animal populations and purposely up set the ecosystem. I just got back from Yellowstone National Park and know that wolves were established there but only because they were almost completely gone, but not to control any game populations, and it was felt that that was an area sufficiently remote enough to have little or no impact on the general population in the United States. As a matter of fact I even got to see a large black wolf up in the Lamar Valley as a result of this effort to repatriate these wolves in the lower 48 states, so thank you to those people who helped make this possible.
Could someone please post a link to this kilng of the cougar?
Wolves and Grizzly have been "re-introduced" in several locations. I guess that doesn't count as messing with the eco-system, because they were once there:^) And depending which side of the equation you fall on, not sure that the wolf issue is a good thing across the board.
Cougars in PA? Maybe a pet-let-loose. Don't think they were planted. Yotes in PA?....thats another story. Not sure on that one. As one who watched the Yote invasion as a trapper in 70's & 80's.....I would not be shocked to find out they were planted.
There are definately plenty of coyotes in PA, and some of them inhabit areas that people would quite surprised about. The cougar debate has gone on for years. The Game Commission denies the existance of any wild cougars in the state. I believe there have been a few issues with pets getting loose. Do I think they exist? I'm not sure, but part of me likes the idea of my home state being more wild than we think. I have no doubt that they could exist in parts of the state, but I don't think that they would become very widespread or with great numbers. Of course part of me actually believes in bigfoot too. As far as the game commission or insurance agencies releasing predators to control the heard, I think its rubbish. There has been a hotly debated topic of deer herd reduction in PA for a while now. I'm not sure which side of the fence I sit on, but I know that those who have taken sides are usually pretty vehement about the side they chose.
PA introduced Compsilura concinnata to control gypsy moths so I wouldn't put anything past them.
While the flies don't bite like cougars, I think I'd rather be chased from the woods by a cougar than be driven nuts by the thousands of those pesky flies I encountered in Potter & Tioga counties this past Memorial Day Weekend!
As far as cougars go, I didn't see any but I did see a coyote in Tioga and a bobcat in Monroe County.
197, I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca AZ, after my first tour in Vietnam. Very few people have ever heard of Ft. Huachuca, and the few that have heard of it could not find it on a map. That is because Ft. Huachuca is the Headquarter for the U.S. Militaries Stragic Communications Command, and Military Intellegence.
It is on the west slope of the San Pedro Valley, butting up against the Huachuca Mountain Range. Across the valley from Fort Huachuca is Tombstone AZ.
The Ft. Huachuca Military Reservation had one of the largest concentrations of Mountain Lions (Cougars) in the lower 48 States (in 1971). Each autumn the Game Management Folks on base, would harness their horses and pack mules and go into the Huachuca Mountains to do a survey of the Mountain Lion poplulation.
They would use tranquilizer dart rifles to sedate the cats, and they aways had a backup rifleman standing right behind the guy with the dart rifle. I was that person with the real bullets....
I used a single shot, bolt action Mauser with a shorten barrel, with a metal butt plate. You have to shoot the cat when it about 10 feet from you as it is about to spring its leaping attack. You immediately reverse the direction of the rifle (no chance to reload) and give the cat a butt stroke with the butt of the rifle, as you reach for you 16 inch Bowie Knife to cut the stomach open on the cat.
With a M-14, iron sights, full size human siloette at 400 meters, I could put 6 rounds into a 6 inch circle at chest height, in a standing unsupported shooting position. With the Colt 45 caliber pistol (M1917A) I could put 7 rounds into the bulleyes of a target at 25 meters in 10 seconds.
So that is why I was the man with the Mauser standing behind the guy with the dart rifle. The dart rifleman was good, and I never had to fire a shot......
Some of those cats were big, bigger than most of the field hunting dogs~Parnelli
PS: We have Cougars (Mountain Lions) in Minnesota, some of them have been seen in the outlying suburbs of the Twin Cites along the Minnesota River Valley. In Northern Minnesota, I personnally saw a Cougar, sunning itself along Minnesota Hwy 6 in Outing MN, on the 4th of July on the front lawn of the township hall (with cars and trucks just wizzing on by).
We have coyotes in the Twin Cities Metro area, as well as bear, badgers, racoons, hawks, eagles, moose and deer. Every once and a while a Tiger, Lion or Grey (Timber) Wolf gets loose from someone's place that likes keeping exotic animals. A business in Center City (up by Taylors Falls, has a herd of Buffalo!
The feilds looked as if a harvester had been run through em... n in mid june it sure hadn't been by the harvesting for the year if everything within reach on the trees is gone they pretty much gotta start on whats left or risk starvation.... these weren't the mature dried stalks and only the first feilds right off the tree line got this much damage as it opened up their buffer zone deer don't like crossing open land ....
Game Comm does not need or use live predators to greatly reduce deer herd in most sections of Pa. They have a much more effective method. Formally called bonus licenses now that they stated they would no longer sell bonus licenses they have just taken to calling them unsold licenses. The huge numbers they make available certainly put a hurting on the deer population. Although I do not believe they are stocked there certainly are some cougars in Pa. Coyotes we got up the yazoo. The yotes really put a hurting on other animal populations. One good thing is that the greatly expanded numbers of yotes have almost done away with feral dogs and cats. As one old timer told me if they cannot mate with them they eat them.
It is all a moot point as to how they got here because they are here. I have also seen the area Bill mentions and it is a heavily deer damaged are to the point where other game populations in that area are negatively impacted. While I haven't seen the stalks eaten I have seen the juvenile ears bitten off of the stalks. Once that happens the farmers remove the damaged crop as silage.
The Pennsylvanian Game Commission years ago divided the state into Wildlife Management Units or W.M.U.'s Supposed each individual WMU is continually assessed for condition of habitat and wildlife populations. When an imbalance exists between supporting habitat and wildlife populations the harvest and opportunities to harvest wildlife are adjusted in order to achieve the proper balance. At least that is what the PGC would have you believe. Hogwash! Anyone who buys that needs to by that lake front property on the moon. Pennsylvania is the number one state for automobile accidents involving white tail deer! Don't believe me? Call you insurance company or adjuster and ask them. While I don't really buy into the conspiracy of the PGC and insurance companies I do believe the PGC saw an opportunity to make a lot of money off of this by selling way too many extra doe tags and making the two weeks of "brown and down deer hunting" statewide in the regular rifle season. I do however believe that the insurance companies brought pressure onto the state to reduce the car/deer collision rate.
Ayway as far as the deer population issue goes it is all about money.
I will be up fishing White Deer Creek as soon as we get a bit of rain and some lower temps. What area is all this deer damage near. Might be interesting to take a ride or maybe a walk along the border to see it for myself. Thanks
I don't want to twist or hijack this thread on Cougars here in Taxylvania but I will just make a comment about the deer.
nighthawk is spot on about the money. When you buy a gun,bow,fishing rod,etc they are federally taxed by the govt at rates sometimes as high as 11%. I know, I paid them. Ammo is as high as 11% with guns being 10%. Fishing rods get taxed,as does anything related to that industry. I pay my FET for every rod that I build. Now that money gets dispersed thru to the states. How, you ask??? Thru the number of licences that your game dept sells. Thats why they sell bonuses, left over, un purchased,whatever they want to call it. More they sell, the more money they make.
Now the insurance companies are the strongest lobbyests that the state has. They promote more license sales. Don't think they don't. We have more deer killed on the highway than Maine does in hunting. Politicians look out for their better interests and who will donate money to their war chests. Insurance companies have that clout. Besides the Game commission should be called the PA Tree commission, for all they want to grow are trees. Lumber makes money, more money than hunting licenses do.
So when I hear about anything--I mean anything that has helped the state rid the deer from the Penns Woods, I have to think how will it benefit them.
I've hunted the forests of Tioga county for years and have seen the deer disappear from the woods. I've been told that I don't hunt far enough in the woods and thats why I see nothing. Hmmmm, Why is it that the area I've hunted was good for deer in the 90's (good, not great like in the 70's) virtually had the deer disappear when they went to the combining of the seasons with buck and doe????
Show me the area with all these deer!!!
Want to really put a finger on the biggest cause of our deer disappearing??? Hunter greed. Bears, cougars, yotes, and even cars kill deer but we the hunters,buying extra licenses, did it to oursleves. Can't be happy with one deer, gotta buy more to kill more.
Randy
Yes Sir I fully agree!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdadyrods
The PGC sold the bonus tags as "science Based management"....not to be questioned. And the public bought it. If they are selling the tags....it must be necessary, right? They would never be politically motivated...would they? LOL.
Wow, thinning deer herd in PA. Here in Kentucky, they have become pests and one almost plays bumper cars with them driving down any country road right after sunset. Even with heavy hunting pressure, the herd is expanding rapidly.
Honestly I would not mind it if the PGC did bring the Mountain Lion back to our state. Might as well bing back the moose too. If we brought the timber wolf back that would control the coyote population as well. Oops did not intend to give any on the PGC board of directors any ideas.
Come on down here. They're EVERYWHERE down here. Urban deer - and you can't hunt them. Due to liability reasons, more and more landowners are posting their properties. Large tracts of land are being split into smaller ones and sold off for development. Safety zones prohibit legally hunting them. There's been a move to reduce the safety zone for archery, and while that'll help a bit, there's still too many deer that you just can't hunt. The state gamelands get pummeled by the hunters, and the deer just move to areas where there is no pressure (ie posted land). The game comission has been issuing basically unlimited bonus tags down here (5C), but it isn't enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdadyrods
Two years ago, I was on my way to hunt a local gamelands at zero-dark-thirty, and I saw what I thought was a dog running down the sidewalk here in town - downtown. As I got closer, it turned out to be an 8 point buck! I saw no deer in the gamelands that day, but dozens of hunters were there.
There's nowhere to hunt down here anymore, but there's more deer than ever. I didn't even buy a license this year - it's just a waste of time for me. On the one tiny little property I do have permission to hunt, the deer evacuate to suburbia at the first sign of hunting pressure. No one wants to give permission to hunt their land due to liability reasons.
The liability issue opened up when that lady got shot accidently with the stray bullet from a chuck hunter---and of course it was your county!!!! That judge held the landowner liable for who was on his property. Remember, the landowner didn't do the shooting, a visitor did it, and it was by accident.
The one thing always missing from tales of cougars in the northeast is a photo. Your friend shot a cougar in PA - surely he took a photo to prove that he did in fact shoot a cougar. Without a verified photo, it's hard to believe the stories of the elusive (and infamous) northeast cougar. Not saying there not there, but no one has proved it yet. A photo of a dead one in PA would do the trick.
I wish they would re-introduce bison/buffalo too. :)
Roy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdadyrods
So in PA you have to buy a license for each deer? In the part of Tennessee where I live, one big game license was good for (potentially) 42 deer last season. To top it off, the state would provide a free test for CWD if you wanted. We have a bit of an overpopulation problem with our deer herd down here. I live in Nashville and could easily fill my freezer with deer from my yard.
Ed
I'm with Ed on this one. I live just east of Atlanta and I can hardly grow anything in my yard because the deer eat everything, including the "deer resistant" plants. I could probably shoot 3 or 4 every evening off of my front yard alone.
We have loads of coyotes as well, even in downtown Atlanta where they hang around dumpsters. There are also a couple of black bears that find their way into North Atlanta every spring as well. They are almost always young males that have been chased out of the territory of larger males in the north Georgia mountains and followed the river down into Atlanta where they end up at strip malls looking for food. Late last winter there way word of a big cat hunting in Douglas county just west of Atlanta where it had killed and partially eaten a large horse and a full grown cow. They suspected an African Lion, but I never heard of it being captured or killed.
Having worked for Fish and Game when I got out of college, I suspect that if any Fish and Game department released large predators in a state the word would get out pretty quickly.
Jim Smith
Hunter greed yes... But not the licence buying public who buy extra's... The probelem is more deeply rooted than that and VERY widely spread and not at all limited to PA... As it's very much here in CNY too!! The reported kill will never match the actual kill as most do not return their cards... Not to mention the thousands taken annually illeagly.... many many more than most believe are taken without a tag...
I'll agree with that. But I do find that the person who buys more than one license has to ask themselves why are they doing that??? If you're hunting in an area that you actually see the numbers of deer dropping off and you still buy an extra license, are you not part of the problem and not part of the solution???
As far as the illegal deer being taken, oh yes. Saw that with my own eyes. Even to the point of the opening day. Saw 2 guys with 3 deer and not one tagged. Told them to tag the deer or face getting reported. They fumbled around but didn't do it. I told them I was going to report them and I did. By the time the PGC stopped in to check on it, it was several hours later at night. Didn't have but a description of the offenders,as I couldn't see a licence. Never did catch them. All on state land. This is common too in the remote parts of the state. But the PGC knows this takes place.....So why issue more tags if they know more deer are getting killed than tags issued and return???????
PGC states that each WMU can only hold so many deer per square mile. So even with illegal killings, tags not turned in,etc. Many counties still have several thousand licenses for sale to keep the deer--"in check"...yea
EdD--Yes we buy 1 licence per deer. More tages sold, more money from the feds.
Heritage Angler--yes, you have deer running around between houses and don't think the state doesn't count them as nuisance complaints. That gives them the numbers they need to ask for more licenses to be sold. Thats why you see no deer out of town. No deer are there!!!! All been shot off.
OK I'm getting off track on the original thread talking about cougars..sorry,
Randy
I'm sure the cougars in Pa are somewhat the same as the cougars in NY. Nearly everyone has seen one or knows someone who has seen/shot one, knows the PGC or the NYSDEC released them to control the deer herd, and on and on...as many have said, and as someone also has said, in most cases everyone is well meaning but 99.9% of these stories are FALSE. I've had people tell me they saw it with their own eyes, someone they know and believe has a pic posted on the internet, you go look at the pic, then google "Cougar Pics" and usually within 10 minutes you can find the absolute SAME picture some place else and trace it to a western state.
No one in NY has killed one, with a weapon or a vehicle, taken a photo that can be documented of any tracks or droppings, or has any other concrete actual evidence of any kind. It may be the same in Pa. although Pa. certainly has more areas of extensive REMOTE mature forest that possible could harbor a small population of these animals. NY has the Adirondacks but even there no one has produced documented evidence of their existence. I believe there are valid reasons for this..#1 Even mature forests are not the favored habitat for cats. Western habitat with higher elevations, rocks/cliffs, high mountains interspersed with some timber, meadows etc. is the preferred range.#2 Cats are reclusive creatures by nature and the human population in NY and probably Pa are way too high even in remote areas for cats to be comfortable even if the habitat was to their liking. I know about the stories of cats traveling down to LA and taking dogs/cats/kids, etc...these are almost always rogue singular individuals who are either aged/injured and not able to compete for food in their natural habitat.
Deer......everyone is always looking for a reason why they have fewer, and that is why the belief in the cat/cougar stories. As Bigdady stated in most cases look in the mirror and there's the reason for less deer....we shot 'em! Let me say this, however, where the habitat is good, a lot of cropland, small mast bearing woodlots, plenty of water, etc, those deer will come back quickly, when DEC/PGC cut back on permits used to control those areas. Also as Heritage is alluding to in many more urban areas, where deer can find preferred food, and no hunting is allowed deer are overpopulated and to some extent deer do travel out of these areas and repopulate other ares as the habitat allows. On the other hand, mature old growth heavily forested areas are not able to support big populations of deer. 6-10 deer per square mile is a normal population in that type of environment. You can have higher populations if you have restrictive harvesting in these areas (ie not shooting does), but once you start more intense managing (ie nuisance licenses, etc) that population, once severely reduced either by some natural reason such as starvation or disease, or by intense harvesting, it will tend to only carry what is natural for that type of habitat to carry.
NY has had intense harvesting and nuisance permits longer than Pa has been doing it, 12-13 years now. I was leary what it would do to the deer population in NY. For the most part it is pretty much the same as Pa. Where the habitat is marginal deer populations are down and will probably not comeback without more restrictive management, but if the habitat can't support more deer why try to build population if the deer will be forced to overbrowse, breed smaller fawns, grow smalller racks, be disease prone etc.?
Where habitat is good the deer take a beating every year, but seem to be holding there own population wise and as Bigdady and Heritage pointed out its due to alot of posted property hunters can't get on, overcrowding of the available public land, etc. In alot of cases again as Heritage pointed out, hunters see less deer on the land they hunt, because it is overhunted, not because the deer population is low, they have simply moved to a more protected area until the heat is off and then they move right back in. I've seen that exact scenario take place here on 800 acres of stateland near me. By the 2nd or 3rd day of season you will see very few deer there, but late in the season or just after there are often nearly as many there as always.
Anyway sorry to start rambling, my .02.
My money is on you for this one!;)Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard
Randy - That shooting accident happened in Lehigh County, and I live in Northampton County.:razz:
It was, however, less than a 10 minute drive from my house. At the time, there was a big push to have that area put under shotgun only regs, to help prevent such an accident from happening again. It was really a freak accident - the girl was sitting in her car about a mile away from where the shot was taken, and I'm pretty sure the guy was deer hunting.
Keep wizard away from trees and we got nothing to worry about.....This year he backed out in front of me with his van near Cammal. Was the same unfortunute sight of the bird killing location that met his demise with my grill. ...So you know how fast I was driving....
Anyway, ED...The shot was a considerable distance away but the guy was hunting woodchucks...legally. An errant shot is what hit her but as you stated, she was a loooong way away. The family sued the owner of the property, who was at work at the time of the shooting, and held him liable for allowing the hunter to be on his property. Terrible judge, terrible atttorney, whatever the case. This was a travisty of justice.
Not hijcking the thread...but this is the same area that a suit took place involving the PA fish & boat, landowner and the defendant over the right to wade in a stream and fish in a navigable waterway..... Some judge found the guy guilty and the Fish & boat assisted in helping the guy fight it...The defendant won but it just goes to show you the courts are not always right. This was a case before the Donny Beaver story on the Juniata.
Randy
No wonder you Skukes don't see any deer - you're lookin' down a hole! Check back on the records - he was huntin' deer (or was that wabbits?).:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Bigdadyrods
From the Allentown Morning Call:
Sep. 19--A recent Lehigh County civil jury decision has landowners, hunters and state game management officials concerned. On Sept. 8, jurors found a North Whitehall Township orchard owner partially liable for the injuries Casey Burns suffered when she was struck in the head by a bullet fired by a deer hunter on the property. The verdict is already prompting landowners to deny sportsmen the right to hunt on their land. The jury found the hunter, Craig T. Wetzel, 90 percent liable in the 2004 accident. It held the property owner, Daniel W. Haas, 10 percent liable. Mr. Wetzel had earlier pleaded guilty to hunting violations, paid $5,500 in fines and restitution, received six....