Here, Kitty Kitty...
 

Taken in the Palisades area or Eastern Washington, between Quincy and Wenatchee:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1297264095.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1297264114.jpg

Nine!

I thought they were more solitary, not pack animals.

holy crap mucho los gatos! yesterday down by ft. huachuca(home of the joy stick UAV's for the planet), az fish and game was called for an alleged OCELOT sighting.



and by gawd it WAS AN OCELOT! rare and endangered and endemic to at least 1/2 the state, and mexico to the south.



can you imagine traipsing along bored to tears hunting and coming up on that many mtn. kittys!



me i would pick the biggest one,nail him and pray to buddah the others split the scene! if they didnt split and wanted to contest the area..................well of course by all means i would have to pull out the 33rd glock!(which i dont own)! LOL!



p.s. mtn kittys live and die in about a 250 sq. mile area.

i'm guessing 8 males and one female about to come in season.

awesome..

a boys night out..or
a C-Gruppe meeting..?

Rika

they looking at the north star or something? that is one bright star!

Wow that's some scary stuff!

Poker night in the high desert.

That was bad. REAL bad!

more like poke-her night...

Is that a cow in the fore ground? I tried magnifying the picture but the resolution is poor.

that's what it looks like to me too

maybe with enuff dead carcasses on the landscape they will evolve into the same semi-sociality as lions have ...

Very cool! I bet if you stumbled across them they'd probably run. Actually very unlikely to stumble across them - they hear much better than humans and see in the dark a lot better too.

run away? or....

Lions would defend their food source (if it really is a dead cow). What an accumulation of cougars would do is something I am interested in seeing you guys test.

you first....I'll cover you:)

Looks like a rock to me, like a well marbled chunk of granite or something. None of the kitties have been feeding. They don't normally just sit around like that, politely waiting their turn, either. That, and they are not likely to share their kill as it would be among a pride of lions. Any other cougars approaching would engender a fight from the owner.

OK but why the social behavior from what is normally a solo animal?

I tell ya, its the End of Days!

You must tell us your secret to herding cats...

German shepard? A big one!

mtn lions/cougars usually need a deer sized critter about once to twice every 2 weeks. they are just big katz, hence they are finicky eaters. they will eat when hungry and then bury the rest. when hungry again they will go back to the kill site and then feed again, until gone and then go after fresh prey.


the kill site is usually where hunter/tree hugger/ nature lovers come into contact and they WILL contest the kill!



now if ya had lil dawggies with you , they would split as soon as hearing the lil dawggies a distance off yelping barking. because theyz katz and theyz hate lil dawwgies. and lil dawggies unleashed, will take the scent and chase them up a tree. becuz their katz and they like trees.


when you come upon a mtn lion kill it will be completely buried in brush and some dirt or whatever grasses that are endemic to the area.


when you find one, you better be smart about things, because they dont go far from a kill site and you just may have a world of hurt coming your way BIG TIME!


out in the junipers south of the grande canon(grand canyon) they nail the hell out of elk. and its a real obvious smell, and when close a real obvious pile of brush/dirt/grasses with the ensuent crows/mag pies/ravens/vultures generally circling an area with a fresh kill. the birds will 1st nail the soft tissue. ie. the eyes and the lips and the ears, then they go for whatever else is easy pickings.



when you find one of these, and any hunter worth his salt will go after a scent like this, because there is ALWAYS action around a kill site, as mentioned the 1st thing you will see are the crows/ravens/vultures circling. (JUS LAK DA MOVIES), and this is when ya want a buddy to watch yer 6 oclock. and this ISNT A JOKE!



same goes for GUT PILES.....................ALWAYS ACTION around them for a few days after your hunt after you have gutted/skinned/1/4'd yer tagged species.



katz very very seldom go after road kill . they want fresh meat period.



now excuse me why i go and continue my sons brand new springfield M1-A "loaded" stainless barrel, evil black synthetic stock build/transformation, which will be used just for such a chance encounter with a mtn kitty! and lord knows these fine(?) katz dont want to be shot with a simple out of the box HO-HUM accurate, boring M1-A. they would much rather be shot with USGI match grade parts/sadlak parts/and springfield super duper match parts fitted M1-A! LOL!

technically, no social behavior is shown - what you see is called an "aggregation"

once you get an aggregation social behavior will typically occur...

doesn't mean they are not enjoying some social behavior... just not shown

that picture was taken before "social distortion" was evident. about 30 seconds after, the female was impregnated by the "alpha" male puddy tat, while his buddies watched and foamed at the mouth, the female splits,pissed off, that her ear was damn near gnawed off, and out come the shots and beers,cigars,cigs, and party hats!


hence the statement : "what are ya doing?" "well just catting around!"


"catter-whalling" would be quite evident before and after "the love dance" to show who the dominant "alpha" male is or was.

Can you imagine that in the human world?

it would be called a "GANG BANG!" MEOW!

I think gang is the operative word

like the "GANG" is ALL HERE!


or "working" on the chain "GANG!"



that truly is an amazing pic to be seen. as they only come together during female estrus. and this is maintained just like lil domsticated puddy tats do by the male spraying and the female spraying. and them sniffing feces.


so think about dis as a human. yer horney(male) and your female better 1/2 is horney or in heat. and you have to drag yer tired dead azz around 250 miles of freeking territory covered to find a piece of it! i would say THAT is a rough life!


hell of a way to find a date!

Well, yes.

Rape was very common in war up until a certain point in history.

BTW - when a couple of male lions (usually brothers) take over a pride, they also kill off all the young cubs. The females then come into season more quickly and...

if no carcass, then I wonder why they are all together in a group like that...

Great pics - thanks for sharing.

Yes, we're much more civilized now. In modern, "progressive" society we only condone murder of unborn babies. That's so much more forward-thinking.

Sorry for the PARF interjection but listening to lecture about the history of morality from someone in the pro-abortion camp is like listening to a slaughterhouse worker talk about the history of veganism.

I've always loved these animals, and loved the idea that they are a part of our wilderness, right here in Washington state. I've been priviledged enough to "spend some time" with them in the wild, having encountered them numerous times in my lifetime of woods bumming and wilderness wandering. There is something very special, almost surreal about crossing paths with one out there all by your lonesome. The realization that you are now in second place on the local food chain really gets the juices flowing. Even our local bears don't bring out quite the same emotions and thoughts.

The closest I've ever been to one of these was a good, competetive seed spitting distance. I was out deer/bear hunting, and actually had a cougar tag as well. We surprised one another on kind of a rocky, sage brush covered knoll. I had crawled around some rocks to sit up against them and observe the surrounding country. It looked like he had the same idea. We saw each other at about the same time, with him laying on some rocks no more than 30 feet away. We just sat/laid there for the longest time, staring at each other. It would have been so easy to fill my cougar tag, but the thought never even crossed my mind. I was having a ball. He looked like he could care less after awhile. Finally, after about half an hour, he got up and left. Must have thought this loud, smelly klutz has ruined his spot or something. I'll never forget that experience.

since all the tree huggers/peta clowns wiped out the fur trade mtn kitty numbers and other assorted fur bearer numbers are way up here in az. you can still trap here, but now you have to have a license, your traps have to have ID tags, your traps have to have neon lights on them and be checked every 10 minutes, and a host of other crap that just makes trapping unprofitable anymore.


anyway i go to work early here at the aeropuerto. like real damn early. since this area is granitic in geologic terms with lots of mtns right in town and the surrounding area, it has become a mecca for bob katz and mtn kittys. why?


goofy golf courses. and whats at goofy golf courses???




a steady supply of deer and other critters/year round water/ lots of rocks and the boulders 5 star resort with you guessed it............LOTS OF BOULDERS!



and EVEN BETTER.................lots of lil pocket dawwgs/yip yips/ kick dawgs and assorted other domsticated katz that roam freely along with idiots from back east always feeding the wild game(felony here feeding wildlife).



so its a mecca for the upper food chain puddy tats.



there is (1) mtn lion that has claimed his turf here and i have seen him cross the runway before dawn, and cross the road i use to access the aeropuerto that goes thru the north side of the boulders resort. this guy has it MADE!



year round supply of water/deer/pocket dawgs and domesticated puddy tats and nobody can do a damn thing because hes in the town limits!



around here they love the rocks/boulders.

thank you for not taggin him Jeff..

Rika

I also admire these cats.

And, yes, there do seem to be more nowadays, most likely b/c there are LOTS more deer around.

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