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Mountain Lions officially back in Kansas
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Mountain Lion Food!
Camping in Kansas is "officially" more interesting now. To most of us, the news of a hunter spotting a Mountain Lion was no surprise. In fact, sightings are not all that uncommon in Western Kansas. What makes this story newsworthy is that the hunter got a few snap shops of the animal, leaving no more speculation of their presence on Kansas land.
These cats, also known as Cougar's, Panther's, and Puma's, used to be a natural Kansas predator, roaming our state in search of deer, and other animals down the food chain. It is widely known and accepted that man eradicated the cat from Kansas and most of the east, through bounty hunting, for reasons of personal security, but mostly for livestock protection.
For many sportsmen in Kansas, this is wonderful news. For one, it means that someday in the future we may again have a large population of Cougars, and instead of being hunted out of ignorance, they can be "managed" and hunted as dangerous game. Secondly, whether you are out hunting Squirrel, Deer, Turkey, or backwoods camping, you will have to worry about being hunted yourself, making the overall experience more. . . primitive. Third, it means one of the damages man has caused our state, is slowly but surely being mended.
The range of these cats runs the entire Western half of the states, up into Canada and south completely covering Mexico. The one photographed here in Kansas was seen in the far West around Wakeeney. This is a great distance from most of our campgrounds, but is not something to be ignored.
Although many are excited at this news, there are inevitably many more who will want to kill all of them, fearing that children and pets are in jeopardy. Let us leave no doubt about that fact either, they have been known to attack and/or kill children, pets and adults in neighboring states. However, Canada and the U.S. put together only have an average of six attacks per year, resulting in only one death per year. That's far less than half of the deaths that are attributed to Bears. This number is proof that there is no need for Kansans to fret over our newly found residents.
Congratulations to the hunter who got the pictures, he must have been very stealthy not to be seen or smelled by the Cougar. These animals are highly secretive and masters of camouflage, even more so than our common Bobcat's.
Now that the subject is on our camping and hunting minds, it would be nice to know what to look for and what to do in the case of an encounter. In the next article, we will discuss techniques used to prevent attacks when encountering the big cats and preventing the encounters entirely. Till then, happy camping in Kansas!
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