I felt a need to embed this video on the website because it’s a good example of how to deal with a mountain lion who has wandered into the suburban environment. There was no shooting which I love. I have read stories in the past of cougars being shot because they have wandered down high streets in some suburbs, somewhere and the shooters have justified it by saying they couldn’t do anything else and they had to protect the residents. Well, we can do something else which is to take the cat back to the countryside and preserve her life.
Note: The BBC screwed up: the still image thumbnail before the video is played is of a lioness! Phew. Never mind.
Jumping Skills
This is a female cougar. I love the way she jumped up the garage and over the hedge. That’s a little demonstration of how beautifully agile this cat is. The mountain lion is probably the best jumper of all the cats on the planet. And you get a little glimpse of how it’s done in that segment of the video.
Habitat Loss
She looked confused to have found herself in the backyards of these homes. I know I keep saying it but from the mountain lion’s standpoint this was her territory. She would have normally roamed around this area and the area would have been wild without any human settlement. Her territory was taken from her. Her habitat was stolen so you can’t blame her for wandering into the backyards of people’s homes. Loss of habitat is the biggest threat to the wild cats. Yep, humans keep on breeding.
Human Population Growth
Yesterday evening I watched an old film starring Charlton Heston called Soylent Green. You may know it. It’s about what happens when human population growth continues unabated into the future to the point where the environment is destroyed and food becomes scarce. In the film people are used to create bland, colored processed food by a manufacturer called Soylent. The green food is made from dead people rendered down. It’s fiction but you can almost see it happening.
The authorities have to deal with this cat humanely and decently because humans created the situation in which she finds herself. Another reason is because they are protected and rightly so. This is a wonderful animal and they are not as dangerous as people think they are. They can be scared away. They don’t need to be shot. And please stop hunting this animal. They are too beautiful and too precious to be hunted for pleasure.