Try this at home..

[david]

"Have you ever heard the hyena laugh in the African night or the coyote wail under the full moon? Have you seen their glowing eye-shine in the outer dark of the firelight? It is supremely haunting."

Don't know much about hyenas, but I've been out with a coonhound or two and had coyotes begin howing from all directions and within 50 feet or so. I've also had bobcats scream from about that close.

More experienced hounds pretty much ignore coyotes, but the bobcats will send most of them scurrying back to the human for safety.

There are now confirmed sightings of a pair of panthers over by the Cumberland river, about five miles from here. They killed a new born colt while the owner was ten feet away inside the barn. Left nothing but a carcus and BIG tracks.

I know several old time coon hunters who have claimed to have seen panthers in this area, but this is the first time they have been confirmed here. A game warden caught them on video.

I may be the only farmer here who is rooting for the cats! I like knowing something wild can still BE here now. I just keep a closer eye on my stock. And never make jokes about them!



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[chillywilly]

David,
I'm with you on that. Let the big cats, the big dogs, let'em come on back. The mountain lions are doing it here in Los Gatos (which was named for them) I get bobcats in the yard regularly and there's reports of mountain lions/cougars (whatever you want to call them they are big f-ing cats) moving down into the Santa Clara Valley. The cougars are now taking joggers on the foothill trails. That ought to get some attention on the nightly TV news, and it does.

I see coyotes every day climbing up through my pasture at sunrise. We're pushing them out with our gated subdivisions, supermalls and what-ever-else, and now they've had enough, they are pushing back.

Coyotes took my cat last winter. She was the sweetest little thing that God ever put breath in. Them dogs didn't know or care. They are howling tonite just across the creek. I'm driving them off with bad music on my slide guitar. Let's see who wins this one.

-Chilly

[jellyroll baker]

I don't trust those coyotes. You can throw 'em off a cliff, blow 'em to bits with ACME dynamite, throw an anvil on their head... they'll STILL bounce right back and try to get that dern RoadRunner.

[badfinger]

[updated:LAST EDITED ON Jun-23-03 AT 06:50 AM (EST)]CAS.
SRV? Wouldn't know him if I tripped over him. But it looks like Kevin Spacey... (There again, I'd just been watching a film with him in it.)


Willy!
"...the hyena laugh in the African night"

Oh, yes. But mainly in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya (borders of Somalia & Ethiopia), living for a while with the Samburu and the Rendille. Only twice in Tanzania, once officially, the second time a border violation sorta thing, paid for by being chased thru the 'mara and shot up (the vehicle, fortunately) by shifta posing as army/police.

I have a great fondness for that part of the world (pre plastic-littered skies). We must swap some tales off the board.

bf

[david]

Lovat, you ol' Houndog! The Bannana Splits havn't crossed my feeble mind in many a year.


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[houndog]

Hello,
the hyena is a truly intresting aminal , as it holds a special niche between the killers and the killed.

I have chosen Wile E Coyote as my personal totem and I have several next to my computer,as Chillster says it is a tricky beast and in many ways reflects the acknowledgement of the tension between my outer Houndog and inner Coyote.

Wile E reminds me it is better to pursue than to catch my aspirations.

adios,
Lovat

[chillywilly]

>Wile E reminds me it is better to pursue than to catch my
>aspirations.
>

Lovat, yer in rare form on this whole thread. That's a good one. I suspect there's a bit of Wile E. Coyote in all of us.

out,
Chillydog

[inbred]

It's true. Flashbacks are real. I'm apparantly having one now. There goes F-F-F-Flipper now and he is flying.

[david]

Naw, flashbacks are mythical creations, just like National guitars. I used to believe in flashbacks but I found it made me stay frustrated and angry all the time since I had never had one and felt like I wasn't getting my money's worth.

Now I have broken free from the dillusion and it is a liberating experience.



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[ricochet]

Back in the early '70s I used to go coon hunting with a friend who lived back in the mountains above the head of Watauga Lake near New Butler. ("Old Butler," the town my mother-in-law grew up in, was condemned by the TVA and flooded under the lake.) We often had bobcats come check us out. They're as curious as any cat. They'd pad around us just at the limit of the light, while the dogs were off chasing coons. I've heard 'em scream, but never really close. There were lots of bears in those hills. I used to carry a single shot .22, which I probably wouldn't've ever used on a treed coon, but you aren't hunting if you aren't packing. One night just before dawn we were walking back home along a typical mountain foot trail with a stream on one side and steep ridge covered with rhododendrons on the right. The dogs were ranging through the brush and startled something that came right at me, grunting and snorting and breaking brush. I felt right inadequate holding my kerosene lantern and single shot .22, thinking it was a big bear. Just as it was about to break out of the brush, right on top of me, it saw me and bolted the opposite way uphill. After my heart had slowed down a little and my friend had almost quit laughing, we decided it had likely been a startled buck, snorting. I started carrying my Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum, though, just to make me feel better. Way back then my friend was telling me about occasionally hearing panther screams in the night and finding cat tracks and claw marks on trees from a kitty way bigger than any bobcat. The official word from the wildlife experts was that there were no mountain lions east of the Mississippi outside of the Okeefenokee. One of my present partners was in private practice in Independence, Virginia from the late '70s to 1991 or so, and he saw one in his backyard one evening! Some of the area forest rangers have been privately saying they've had similar experiences for years, but staying quiet about it. The experts are starting to acknowledge that perhaps a "lion" occasionally wanders through the mountains from Florida. They don't believe they're resident here, yet.

[david]

Ric,
With experiences like those, how'd you ever give up coon hunting?

I usually take only an oak walking stick with me, figuring the bobcats and coyotes will keep their distance and my biggest concern is uneven terrain in the dark. A good walking stick is handy when you have to get down a steep bank, cross a creek and climb the other side, all in the dark.

With confirmed sightings of panthers/cougers/or whatchacallums the game may have changed somewhat. I don't believe I would ever shoot one of them. I don't think they would give you enough notice for self-defense and I don't think they would let you get close enough for long enough for a planned shot. Wouldn't really want to shoot one anyway.

The reason I still go, and why I don't bother to take a gun, is that when you turn the dog lose you have no idea where you will end up or what you will run across. Every time its different. Its the best way I know of to step out of the pre-fabricated human-centered psuedo-reality and into the "wilderness"--as nature beyond our control. In a subdivided for sale world, there is less and less opportunity for that.

Yeah, they may cause problems with my stock, but I still welcome the cats. I think they are saying something Nature wants said.


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[ricochet]

Yeah, coon hunting, rabbit hunting, anything listening to the dogs run is great! I do miss it! I'd have a hard time keeping up in the shape I'm in now! Mainly I've gotten busy with responsibilities and settled in where I'm a good way off from friends who do that sort of thing. And I can't stay out all night and go the next day like I could 30 years ago!

A walking stick is a great thing. I made one last week from a nice piece of bamboo. Handy and light as a stick, and as a club it's like Sammy's corked bat. You can really get some speed with that thing!

I read about the Western cougars taking joggers. The most dangerous thing you can do in cat country is supposed to be stopping and bending down, like to tie a shoe. Cats will only attack when you look away. In India field workers (who have to stoop down a lot) protect themselves from maneater tigers by wearing hats with eyes painted on the back.

BTW, I just asked my partner when he saw the panther in his Virginia backyard. 1988, he says.

[ricochet]

BTW, circa 1970 I read a story in one of the outdoor magazines by one of the oldtimers (Jack O'Connor, maybe?) about a very self-sufficient Indian woman he knew who lived alone in the remote Arizona mountains. A cougar killed her cow's calf and put it up in the fork of a tree. She allegedly waited till it came back, killed it with an axe and skinned it.

[david]

Never mind the cougars, keep your eyes (painted or otherwise) on the Indian women.

In my case its not so much that I coon hunt as I let the dog hunt and I just follow him around in the woods. Then I try to find my way back out.

There are lots of times when I can't sleep due to the way the civilized world is playing out. I go get my light and the dog and we go for a walk. I ought to right the dog food off on my taxes as a medical expense.


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[houndog]

>There are lots of times when I can't sleep due to the way
>the civilized world is playing out.

David,
"meep meep"...what are we chasing,what will we change ?

adios,
Lovat