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vt357
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 04:13 pm |
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http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-10-30-0176.html
Authorities get reports of lion roaming Bon Air
Richmond authorities have received reports of a lion sighting near the Chesterfield County line in Bon Air. Authorities said some residents reported seeing what they thought was a lion just after 8 a.m. Tuesday on Wighton Drive near Channing Circle, just off Huguenot Road near Stony Point Shopping Center. Animal control officers responded but didn't find a lion. Officials with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said the animal was likely a bobcat, not a lion.
I heard on the radio that the joggers who saw it are making sure that they carry their cell phones and also an axe handle. The radio host said what are you going to do with a cell phone? Call 911 and say help help I'm being eaten by a lion... right.
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rob99vmi04
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 04:21 pm |
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.577 Tyranosaur in a double rifle.
Backed up with a S&W X FRAME. Therefore if you can't control the .577and it flies out of your hands (as we all have seen the funny arab videos potray) you still have access to a large caliber back up revovler.
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 04:24 pm by rob99vmi04
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ProShooter
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:20 pm |
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Oh I can just picture it now!
"Soccer mom clubs bobcat to death with axe handle on her morning jog"
Film at 11
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:21 pm by ProShooter
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riverrat10k
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:32 pm |
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| Maybe an escapee from the chesterfield zoo? Probably a real big bobcat. I have a red fox living in the creek a block from my home in this area. Drives the dogs crazy when it passes by in the evenings.
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Agent19
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:34 pm |
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rob99vmi04 wrote: .577 Tyranosaur in a double rifle.
Backed up with a S&W X FRAME.
We are talking about a cat (mountain lion) that weighs in between 80-150 lbs. Bobcats and Lynx weigh less and none are thick skinned however they do move quickly.
http://users.frii.com/mytymyk/lions/attacks3.htm
He who goes unarmed in paradise had better be sure that that is where they are.
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:36 pm by Agent19
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mourneblade
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 06:37 pm |
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Might be a puma that someone had as a pet that got loose. That happened about a decade ago in Tyson's Corner area. Our cleaning staff got the heck scared out of them one night while taking out the trash back then.
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tarzan1888
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 07:00 pm |
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I travel to Salt Lake City a lot on business, and they seem tone or two Mountain Lions a year wander into town. Some have been shot but most are trapped by animal control and taken into the back country.
Virginia would be a little ways out of their range, but I guess anything is possible.
Tarzan
Attached Image (viewed 595 times):
 Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:01 pm by tarzan1888
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FreedomJoyAdventure
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 07:34 pm |
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.12 ga slugs maybe?
Multiple shots from a .308?
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Agent19
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 07:44 pm |
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You couldn't shrink the map
Multiple shots?
Only if you miss or hit non vital areas.
Almost any decent defensive handgun caliber should do within a reasonable distance.
Shot placement is the key as with anything.
A .22LR in the eye would out perform a .12ga slug on the tail.
edit:
typo's
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:15 pm by Agent19
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ed
Founder's Club Member
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 08:58 pm |
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Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 08:59 pm by ed
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ODA 226
Regular Member
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:04 pm |
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Don't laugh about this! A few months ago, my oldest daughter and I went out on the balcony of our second story apartment in Suffolk. The whole area around our place was covered in smoke from the Dismal Swamp fire.
As we were talking, I looked down and no more than 5 yards from our building, I saw a huge cat and it was looking at me. It looked like it was in the vicinity of 75-90 pounds, short, tan fur with white fur around it's mouth. It had a long tail with a dark brown tip.
My daughter saw the thing also. It bolted across an open field and covered 200 yards in about 15 seconds and disappeared.
I asked my daughter what she saw (I was still suprised) and she said, "Daddy, that was the biggest cat I've ever seen...I think it was a mountain lion." I agreed and called Suffolk PD.
They had Animal Control call me. I told Animal Control that I wasn't crazy and I was former LE and a trained military observer and that I saw a mountain lion in my backyard and that I knew we didn't have those in Suffolk.
Animal Control told me that there have been reports of mountain lions in the Suffolk area and that they take these reports seriously. They sent an officer to my place to investigate. He told me to call if I saw the cat again and they would set traps for it.
I know what I saw and it was definately a puma/ mountain lion whatever you want to call it. Go ahead and call me crazy if you want. I know what I saw.
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:05 pm by ODA 226
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rob99vmi04
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:11 pm |
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| Apparently, there coming back. When I lived in CO we would hear reports about once a year where a jogger would go missing and they usually found the uneaten remains a few days later. There have been actual pictures in North and South Carolina takin of mountain lions. I would say it was a ML. The one thing bad about those things its hard claiming self defense because if you see one its probably not stalking you. If you are in a situation you can claim SD on one, your probably already Meow Mix. Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:12 pm by rob99vmi04
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tarzan1888
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:27 pm |
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ODA 226 wrote: Don't laugh about this! A few months ago, my oldest daughter and I went out on the balcony of our second story apartment in Suffolk. The whole area around our place was covered in smoke from the Dismal Swamp fire.
As we were talking, I looked down and no more than 5 yards from our building, I saw a huge cat and it was looking at me. It looked like it was in the vicinity of 75-90 pounds, short, tan fur with white fur around it's mouth. It had a long tail with a dark brown tip.
My daughter saw the thing also. It bolted across an open field and covered 200 yards in about 15 seconds and disappeared.
I asked my daughter what she saw (I was still suprised) and she said, "Daddy, that was the biggest cat I've ever seen...I think it was a mountain lion." I agreed and called Suffolk PD.
They had Animal Control call me. I told Animal Control that I wasn't crazy and I was former LE and a trained military observer and that I saw a mountain lion in my backyard and that I knew we didn't have those in Suffolk.
Animal Control told me that there have been reports of mountain lions in the Suffolk area and that they take these reports seriously. They sent an officer to my place to investigate. He told me to call if I saw the cat again and they would set traps for it.
I know what I saw and it was definately a puma/ mountain lion whatever you want to call it. Go ahead and call me crazy if you want. I know what I saw.
I believe you.
They are an extremely adaptive species. I had it in my head that they were not present East of the Mississippi......BUT the map showing their range to include parts of Florida opens a whole new can of worms.
If you get on Goggle Earth you can readily see that it would not be that hard for a mountain cat to stay in forested/swamp land pretty much all the way from central Florida to southern Virginia.
"Due to persecution following the European colonization of the Americas, and continuing human development of cougar habitat, populations have dropped in many parts of its historical range. In particular, the cougar was extirpated in eastern North America, except an isolated sub-population in Florida; the animal may be recolonizing parts of its former eastern territory. With its vast range, the cougar has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous Americas and in contemporary culture."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_lion
I would not be surprised at all that you saw a Mountain Lion.
Tarzan
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Sea_Chicken
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 09:49 pm |
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| I shot one in Idaho with a winchester 30/30 and it did the trick quite well.
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peter nap
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 11:11 pm |
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Agent19 wrote: You couldn't shrink the map
Multiple shots?
Only if you miss or hit non vital areas.
Almost any decent defensive handgun caliber should do within a reasonable distance.
Shot placement is the key as with anything.
A .22LR in the eye would out perform a .12ga slug on the tail.
edit:
typo's
I agree. They aren't that hard to put down.
I've tried to follow every Va sighting there was for the last 5 years.
There is no credible evidence that there are lions (except escaped pets).
My feeling is that there is a small but growing population though. I spoke to a retired BLM agent a few months ago. He was stationed out west and knew well what Mountain lions looked liked and he has seen two in the South Western part of Virginia.
There are a lot of pictures on the net, most fake and a couple that can't be made out. Still, no proof.
Right now, there are two active areas of interest. Blackstone is one and there have been numerous sightings this year. Chesterfield now but that could be a Shetland pony considering who sighted it.
Remember, it hasn't been that many years that there were NO Coyotes in Virginia. When reports started trickling in, DGIF flatly denied the possibility.
Now, it's nearly impossible to find a county or city that doesn't have an established number of them.
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 11:14 pm by peter nap
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ODA 226
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Posted: Thu Oct 30th, 2008 11:45 pm |
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peter nap wrote:
I've tried to follow every Va sighting there was for the last 5 years.
There is no credible evidence that there are lions (except escaped pets).
I didn't see a collar on that cat...it was definately NOT a pet!
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050112
Note: Sightings in Suffolk. The animal control officer told me that there had been 3 sightings in Suffolk in the past year.
Last edited on Thu Oct 30th, 2008 11:50 pm by ODA 226
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peter nap
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Posted: Fri Oct 31st, 2008 12:22 am |
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ODA 226 wrote: peter nap wrote:
I've tried to follow every Va sighting there was for the last 5 years.
There is no credible evidence that there are lions (except escaped pets).
I didn't see a collar on that cat...it was definately NOT a pet!
http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/information/?s=050112
Note: Sightings in Suffolk. The animal control officer told me that there had been 3 sightings in Suffolk in the past year.
DGIF won't be convinced until one gets shot...or until one of the cats mauls or kills someone.
It would be nice. Now that we have a few Elk back in Va. a couple of mountain lions would just be icing on the cake.
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riverrat10k
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Posted: Fri Oct 31st, 2008 12:25 am |
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Last article I saw was a number of years ago in the Rich. Times Dispatch. Officially, ath that time, state officials claimed there were no "paint'ers" in VA, but the article told of unsubstantiated reports of them along the Blue Ridge and even Ashland! If I get energetic later I will search their database.
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peter nap
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Posted: Fri Oct 31st, 2008 01:13 am |
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riverrat10k wrote: Last article I saw was a number of years ago in the Rich. Times Dispatch. Officially, ath that time, state officials claimed there were no "paint'ers" in VA, but the article told of unsubstantiated reports of them along the Blue Ridge and even Ashland! If I get energetic later I will search their database.
This is about the Blackstone sightings:
http://news.oldva.org/?p=159
Search: Va. town tries to prove existence of ‘ghost cats’ By DENA POTTER,Associated Press Writer AP - 1 hour 12 minutes ago
BLACKSTONE, Va. - Like some other residents of this small town, Mary Elizabeth Goodwyn doesn’t go outside after dark much anymore.
Goodwyn, 81, used to welcome the dusk under a red maple tree in her front yard every evening, but that was before cougars started showing up in Blackstone _ at least in the local newspaper.
Since 2003, the Courier-Record has run at least 15 stories on cougar sightings in town and in the neighboring 41,000-acre Army National Guard training base.
Wildlife officials say that except for a known population of 100 in Florida, the large cats _ also called mountain lions, pumas, panthers and the fitting “ghost cats” _ were wiped out in the eastern United States by 1900. They claim sightings most likely are cases of mistaken identity _ perhaps a bobcat, deer or even a Labrador retriever.
“The sense I get is there are a number of game commission people laughing, and that bothers me a bit because we’ve got good people here who aren’t crazy,” said Billy Coleburn, who as editor of the paper wrote most of the stories.
As mayor of the town of 3,700, he must also figure out a way to calm residents’ fears.
While hundreds of cougar sightings are reported each year from Maine to the Carolinas, evidence of their presence is as elusive as the big cats themselves.
Since 1900, only 64 sightings have been confirmed in the East outside of Florida, despite tens of thousands of reported sightings, said Mark McCollough, an endangered species biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who is leading a review of the eastern cougar.
“People see an animal run quickly across the road in front of them at night in their headlights, and they might jump to the conclusion it’s a cougar, but a number of those reports are inaccurate,” McCollough said.
Mark Dowling, co-founder of The Cougar Network, a research organization, calls it “mountain lion mania,” when one sighting spawns others.
It is easy to misjudge an animal’s size from a distance, Dowling said. His organization often gets photos of housecats from people who believe they are seeing cougars.
Dowling and other experts say the stragglers that do turn up are former pets. Experts estimate there are at least 1,000 captive cougars in the East, although many states have outlawed having a cougar as a pet.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife review, due this winter, is expected to put to rest the question on whether mountain lions still roam eastern forests. If it finds the eastern cougar is extinct, it will be removed from the list of endangered species. If not, a plan could be put in place to manage the cougars that are here and possibly bring others in.
Those in favor of reintroducing cougars say it is a way to restore some of the natural balance to the ecosystem. The cougar’s favorite meal is deer, which cause an estimated 1.5 million auto accidents and 150 deaths annually because of overpopulation.
McCollough said while the natural habitat is well-suited, the fears of easterners accustomed to life without the world’s fourth-largest cats might be the bigger impediment to reintroduction.
“The biological issues are probably not as difficult to deal with as the social or political issues,” he said.
Officials estimate there are as many as 35,000 mountain lions in the West, including in major metropolitan areas like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. And some are inching eastward.
A cougar kitten was hit by a truck in Kentucky in 1997, one cougar was killed and another captured in West Virginia in 1976 and scientists verified droppings from Massachusetts in 1997.
Earlier this year, police killed a cougar in Chicago that was traced through Wisconsin from South Dakota. Sightings have been confirmed in Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and down to Arkansas and Louisiana.
But experts say those are isolated incidents.
Hundreds of motion-activated cameras dot forests throughout the East, from Great Smoky Mountain National Park to an ongoing study along 600 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The results: hundreds of photos of bears, deer and other critters but no cougars.
“I don’t want to come out and say that everybody who says they’ve seen a mountain lion is a crackpot or mistaken, but if the cats were there, I believe we would be confirming them” more through roadkill, trail cameras or other means, said Jay Tischendorf, president of the nonprofit Eastern Cougar Foundation.
Blackstone recently set up a handful of cameras in the woods with the hope of getting proof, and the town’s lone animal control officer’s hours were pushed back to patrol for the nocturnal cat.
Earlier this month, town officials made a cast of what they believed was a cougar track and sent it to state biologists.
The determination: inconclusive.
Sue Cobbs doesn’t need proof. She knows what she saw twice near her Blackstone home. In June, a big brown cat with a long tail chased a deer through her back yard. A month later, she saw one outside her neighbor’s house.
Like Goodwyn, she’s now a little more careful when she goes outside.
“Every time I take my dogs out to go to the bathroom,” she said, “I’m standing there watching the horizon.”
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doug23838
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Posted: Fri Oct 31st, 2008 01:21 am |
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All you need is a .22 Lion, Tiger, Bear, Rhino, doesn't matter.
A simple .22
Shoot your buddy in the knee. Run like hell.
Axe handle? The lion sees that and thinks "Hey.. a toothpick for when I'm done."
Actually, the story on the news reminded me of Jerry Clower's "Lion in the yard. Lion in the yard. " tale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySsBqsbTMxw
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