[pct-l] Big Cats

[wayneskraft at comcast.net (Wayne Kraft)]

I have refrained from telling cougar stories because I don't believe  
I have ever actually laid eyes on one in the wild and I am always  
afraid my stories make me sound like an ancient, fatuous windbag.   
But, unfortunately, I love to hear the sound of my own voice almost  
as much as the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee do, so here  
are the stories and they may actually have a sort of paradoxical  
point. That is, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

These stories are about my father.  Dad was a deer hunter, although  
he eventually decided he just couldn't justify taking another buck  
and quit hunting.  I know many of you have this idea of hunters as  
fat, drunken louts who spray lead all over the place and leave behind  
a mess, but my dad and granddad weren't like that. Dad was the sort  
of hunter who would go out five years in row, fire his Winchester . 
308 five times and bring home five bucks.  And granddad, well, one  
night near dusk he was walking back to camp when he found himself  
nearly on top of a small herd of elk.  There was no time for fancy  
stuff like aiming.  He fired his lever action 32 Winchester from the  
hip and brought down three elk   This created a number of legal  
problems, of course, as the limit was one per hunter, and there was  
some creative sharing of elk tags in short order.

Anyway, some time in the late 50's my dad was hunting in eastern  
Oregon when he heard a hissing noise on a rock just above him and  
spied a big cat in a crouch.  Dad didn't spend a lot of time  
communing with the cat's wild and beautiful soul.  I don't think he  
spent a lot of time thinking about what to do. He just shot that cat  
before the cat had a chance to make the wrong choice about what to do  
about Dad.  It turned out to be a rather large specimen of lynx or  
bobcat.  Dad skinned the cat and took the skin into the some wildlife  
authorities at the county, where he was paid a bounty for eliminating  
a varmint.  I think it was two bucks.  Can you imagine it?  Times  
have changed.  If he did that today (and he wouldn't) they'd probably  
string him up.  My sister still has the bobcat skin.  Kids just love it.

The next story has to do with something that happened on our farm  
when I was about 11 or 12, which would be around 1962 or 63.   We  
lived in a rural, but hardly remote area of the northern Willamette  
Valley about 20 miles south of Portland.  It was a winter evening  
after dark and dad and I were outside after dinner doing some chores  
when we heard a blood curdling sound that I later concluded pretty  
much had to be the roar of a cougar.  I have heard noises from  
smaller cats (which were unheard of in the Willamette Valley then  
anyway) and this was not a scream, it was a roar.  It scared me  
spitless, but I still cannot believe my dad's reaction.  He ran  
toward the sound.  He just had to see this big cat for himself.  He  
just caught a shadowy glimpse of it as it disappeared into the  
night.  It looked bigger than a bobcat to him.  So this phenomenon of  
cougars moving into populated areas isn't completely new.  We had one  
in our back yard over 40 years ago.  Oddly enough, several years  
later I encountered a black bear in almost the same spot.  It seemed  
to have designs on one of our neighbors sheep so I made a lot of  
noise and the bear got annoyed and left.  As I recall, the bear  
engaged in some more tomfoolery in the area after that (I seem to  
recall he ate someone's pet goose, but my memory is a little foggy)  
and hunters with dogs eventually went after it.  They found the bear,  
but never caught it and apparently the experience of being chased by  
dogs convinced it to relocate.  We never heard from the bear again.   
Or the goose.

Wayne Kraft