# Big Cat Hunting/Killing?



## Bam Bam (Feb 16, 2016)

A Few Years back a Big Cat was killed in or close to Lagrange and the Hunter got Fined/got in trouble! If I'm in the woods hunting or just sight seeing etc etc and see a Big Cat (Panther, Mt Lion, Cougar, etc) and think it and know it could endanger my life/well being I'm goana shoot it! Why is it illegal or is it illegal to shoot these big Cats?


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## GLS (Feb 16, 2016)

DNA analysis on the cat shot by the Georgian disclosed that it was a Florida cat which was protected by law.


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## ripplerider (Feb 16, 2016)

Yeah if you saw a cougar or "big cat" it could endanger youre life. So could the  rough looking dudes you see glancing your way at the 7/11 every so often. A quick Google reveals that there were  40 mtn. lion attacks on human beings in the U.S. and Canada between 1991 and 2004. Not the most up-to-date info to be sure but I dont have time right now to search deeper. That equals roughly 3 attacks per yr. Most of those were in areas that have relatively large native populations of mtn. lions unlike Ga. So why would you feel the need to kill an animal on sight just because it has the capacity to kill you? Deer and other hoofed animals are involved in 22 times the number of human attacks as alligators or bears but you dont shoot them do you? Oh wait...


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## NastyBruises11B (Feb 16, 2016)

Only way I would shoot would be if I was being attacked. No way I'd just kill it for being in the area. This is why they're so endangered


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## NCHillbilly (Feb 16, 2016)

NastyBruises11B said:


> Only way I would shoot would be if I was being attacked. No way I'd just kill it for being in the area. This is why they're so endangered



This. Florida has a resident population of them living among a large population of people, and I am not aware of a single attack on a human. 

Every car I see on the road has the capacity to endanger my life/well being. I don't go down the road shooting other cars as soon as I see them, though. The world would be a much less interesting place without a few animals that are badder than we are.


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## Bam Bam (Feb 16, 2016)

I shoot Coyotes & Bobcats because they Attack and Kill what I hunt & eat (Deer) They're "Predators" Coyotes,Wolf,Bobcats,Mt Lions,Cougars,Panthers etc etc!


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## godogs57 (Feb 17, 2016)

NCHillbilly said:


> This. Florida has a resident population of them living among a large population of people, and I am not aware of a single attack on a human.
> 
> Every car I see on the road has the capacity to endanger my life/well being. I don't go down the road shooting other cars as soon as I see them, though. The world would be a much less interesting place without a few animals that are badder than we are.



They'll get out of your way plenty fast most of the time. At least that's the way they've behaved when I'm elk hunting in NM. So will the bear you run in to.


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## K80Shooter (Feb 17, 2016)

godogs57 said:


> *They'll get out of your way plenty fast most of the time.* At least that's the way they've behaved when I'm elk hunting in NM. So will the bear you run in to.



For a minute I though you were talking about cars and trucks getting out of NCHB's way............ Carry on.


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## mguthrie (Feb 17, 2016)

K80Shooter said:


> For a minute I though you were talking about cars and trucks getting out of NCHB's way............ Carry on.



Me to. What if the cat is black. There not supposed to exist so would it be a crime?


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## foxwatcher (Feb 17, 2016)

NastyBruises11B said:


> Only way I would shoot would be if I was being attacked. No way I'd just kill it for being in the area. This is why they're so endangered


Agreed. Beautiful creatures. I often get made fun of by the guys in my club because I won't shoot a fox, a bobcat, or even fox squirrels. I'm there to kill deer for food and enjoy nature, not kill everything on sight.


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## foxwatcher (Feb 17, 2016)

NCHillbilly said:


> This. Florida has a resident population of them living among a large population of people, and I am not aware of a single attack on a human.
> 
> Every car I see on the road has the capacity to endanger my life/well being. I don't go down the road shooting other cars as soon as I see them, though. The world would be a much less interesting place without a few animals that are badder than we are.



Very well said!


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## NCHillbilly (Feb 18, 2016)

Bam Bam said:


> I shoot Coyotes & Bobcats because they Attack and Kill what I hunt & eat (Deer) They're "Predators" Coyotes,Wolf,Bobcats,Mt Lions,Cougars,Panthers etc etc!



If you're worried about the deer, then you oughta be shooting other hunters. And those cars I was talking about earlier. Deer have been living here with coyotes, wolves, panthers, and bobcats for a couple hundred thousand years, and they never came close to wiping them out. After we showed up, deer were gone from most of the country within a century. 

If you have low deer numbers, it's not the four-legged predators to blame, It's those groups of guys all around you where four people each shoot two does apiece on their 200-acre lease every year that are more than likely the culprit.


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## ripplerider (Feb 18, 2016)

I personally will never kill a bobcat intentionally. Theyre just too cool an animal. Dont expect anyone else to agree, do what you want. I'll never kill another fox either. Maybe if I had chickens and they were wiping them out.


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## Nicodemus (Feb 18, 2016)

Words written by a very wise man several generations ago. Most in today`s times will not understand, but a few will.


"Conservation is a state of harmony between man and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and cooperate withe each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate them-cautiously-but not abolish them."


And another lesson from the same man.



"Thinking Like A Mountain


A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.
Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day. Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.

image of deer skull: 5kWe all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men."


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## NCHillbilly (Feb 18, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> Words written by a very wise man several generations ago. Most in today`s times will not understand, but a few will.
> 
> 
> "Conservation is a state of harmony between man and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and cooperate withe each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate them-cautiously-but not abolish them."
> ...



Leopold was a man way ahead of his time. Reading "A Sand County Almanac" many years ago changed many of the ways I thought about things. I have everything he wrote on my bookshelf.


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## foxwatcher (Feb 18, 2016)

Thanks for posting that Nicodemus. I enjoyed that read and will save it for the next time one of these discussions comes up.


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## Nicodemus (Feb 18, 2016)

foxwatcher said:


> Thanks for posting that Nicodemus. I enjoyed that read and will save it for the next time one of these discussions comes up.





If you haven`t read the writings of Aldo Leopold, and have  a love and appreciation of the wild places, you`ll enjoy his works.


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## foxwatcher (Feb 18, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> If you haven`t read the writings of Aldo Leopold, and have  a love and appreciation of the wild places, you`ll enjoy his works.


Heard the name a few times. I'll definitely be ordering some of his books from Amazon after reading that snipit above.  What titles do you recommend?


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## godogs57 (Feb 19, 2016)

Thanks Nick for your insightful post. Like you and I have said many times on "look at this rattlesnake I killed" threads: They are just out there doing the job God intended for them to do. 

My dad worked with the US Forest Service and was very high up on the totem pole there (over 13 states). He always told me that Conservation equates to "wise use of the resource"...and don't ever confuse conservation with preservation.  I agree.


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## NCHillbilly (Feb 19, 2016)

Start with "A Sand County Almanac" and "Round River."


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## foxwatcher (Feb 19, 2016)

NCHillbilly said:


> Start with "A Sand County Almanac" and "Round River."


Will do. Thanks


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## bulldawgborn (Feb 19, 2016)

We need more men today with the same mindset as Aldo Leopold


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## Nicodemus (Feb 19, 2016)

foxwatcher said:


> Will do. Thanks





Excellent recommendations that the Hillbilly gave you. I have both books and have read and re-read them so much I`ve near about wore them out. Every time I read them, I pick up a little more information.


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## GA DAWG (Feb 19, 2016)

I doubt very many if us Ga folk will have to worry about killing one anyhow. Cant even get any trail cam pics of any


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## Miguel Cervantes (Feb 19, 2016)

There is at least one big cat near Rock Eagle. I've personally seen it during the afternoon hunting a food plot in bow season. It had a rabbit in it's mouth, stepped out of the woods and turned and looked dead at me. Creepy feeling, but it went on it's way. I finished my hunt and walked gingerly back to camp in the dark figuring that cat had no interest in me and didn't want to be bothered with. 

Irrational fear of nature is the most ridiculous thing I read about day in and day out. If  you're gonna be an outdoorsman of any kind, you have to accept your rightful place in nature and act accordingly.


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## mguthrie (Mar 12, 2016)

Nicodemus said:


> Excellent recommendations that the Hillbilly gave you. I have both books and have read and re-read them so much I`ve near about wore them out. Every time I read them, I pick up a little more information.



I'll have to find my copy of a sand county almanac. Been awhile since I've read it. Way before his time that's for sure


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## bowhunter59 (Mar 12, 2016)

First read "A Sand County Almanac" in the late 60s while in the wildlife program at UGA.  Since that time, I have reread it numerous times.  Aldo Leopold was way ahead of his time but his insights into the way nature works and how we as humans have done our best to screw it up still amaze me.  Been a few years since I been through the book, but as I sit here, I see it in the bookcase.  Bout time to take it down one more time.  Should be required reading for anyone who loves the outdoors.


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## NCHillbilly (Mar 14, 2016)

bowhunter59 said:


> First read "A Sand County Almanac" in the late 60s while in the wildlife program at UGA.  Since that time, I have reread it numerous times.  Aldo Leopold was way ahead of his time but his insights into the way nature works and how we as humans have done our best to screw it up still amaze me.  Been a few years since I been through the book, but as I sit here, I see it in the bookcase.  Bout time to take it down one more time.  Should be required reading for anyone who loves the outdoors.



I think you should be required to read it and pass a test on the contents before you can be issued a deed for a piece of land.


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## oppthepop (Mar 17, 2016)

Excellent words Nicodemus - they pull me back to a special place I hunted in Wyoming for almost 30 years. 60,000 acres LOADED with cats, AND loaded with incredible mule deer. Balance my friend, balance.


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## joedublin (Apr 9, 2016)

foxwatcher and Nic have it right....enjoy nature without destroying it !


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## model88_308 (Apr 9, 2016)

foxwatcher said:


> Very well said!



Well said?? Florida has a population of maybe 500 big cats and you guys compare that to a population of millions of cars and want us to think you're lucid??


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## model88_308 (Apr 9, 2016)

I've seen all the comparisons, Lightning to bears or big cats?? Dog attacks compared to cat or  bear attacks? Kidding right? There's 100,000,000 dogs in N. A. They want to compare 60,000 bears with 100,000,000 dogs in number of attacks? Yeah, right.


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## shakey gizzard (Apr 10, 2016)

Today's "man" cannot coexist with anything!


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## PopPop (Apr 10, 2016)

A barren landscape is preceded by these words " I paid good money to hunt here, I am going to kill something".
Then too if you have livestock, especially chickens, re establishing respect with the areas predators may be required. The Bobcats, coyotes and foxes learn quick. The coons and opossums do not.


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## swamp hunter (Apr 15, 2016)

A Dangerous Woods is much more exciding...


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## Nicodemus (Apr 15, 2016)

swamp hunter said:


> A Dangerous Woods is much more exciding...





I`m in full agreement with you on that.


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