Mountain lions are most often shy and solitary beasts, to the best of our knowledge. The recent availability of pictures from Ring doorbell cameras gives a different perspective.
Rare sighting of group of mountain lions caught on camera outside Sacramento - ABC7 Los Angeles "Pride" of Mountain Lions Sighted in California Community | OutdoorHub Georgetown Video: Pride of mountain lions caught on Ring camera in Plumas County (fox40.com) Mountain lions roaming Colorado town in pride of about 10 'troubles' officials | Fox News I don't know if this is new behavior or just new observation. It does lend itself to a horror story that I do not intend to write. It begins with a jogger in the forest wearing headphones. After several failures, a posse is marshalled with lion hunting dogs. California offered a bounty on mountain lion hides until the mid-1960's. A temporary moratorium was enacted circa 1970 to allow lion numbers to increase and stabilize. Problem lions that destroyed too much livestock were to be captured and released in Golden Gate Park (just kidding). Hound owners were still allowed to chase lions for some time, just not shoot them. When that went away, lions lost fear of people and we have had more attacks. Mountain lions are not hard to kill. Besides headlamps, all posse members would have sturdy clothing and footwear. All would wear repeating sidearms, likely 9mm in this day, but expect some variety. Longarms would likely be repeating shotguns with #4 Buckshot, as you do not want shot to carry too far beyond vision in the night. Kevlar vests would be a good idea as well as pepper gel for those moments when man and beast are in close contact. I would expect belt knives among the civilians. Lion tactics might include J turns to loop back and ambush pursuers. Dogs employ front and rear simultaneous attacks to disable the prey's Achilles or hamstring tendons. Piercing the skull or crushing the windpipe are classic kill attacks. The lion-killed deer, I have seen, have been eviscerated. Scattering in all directions (bomb shelling) would be a natural tactic to divide pursuit and make them more vulnerable to counter attack. I don't see this as a great movie, like Sharknado, but you never know. Best regards, Rick
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Rick KesterAuthorRick Kester is a Viet Nam era veteran living in Northern California with his wife Nancy. Categories |