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.
i thought they were everywhere! 
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 …