Cats On The Flats

by: Gary Sorenson

Mountain Lions have always intrigued me.  I can’t say I really like them because of their secretive ways, but they keep your interest for the same reason.  I don’t know how true it is but I’ve heard if you’ve hunted three years you’ve more then likely been observed by a Mountain Lion at some point in those three years.  Kind of a spooky thought knowing how many years I’ve traveled in the woods and the overall time spent there.

 Rick Overby’s cats.  Like he says it puts new meaning on it when the little wife asks you to go start the car for her on those cold mornings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lions really haven’t been on my mind of late but when a friend of mine from the great flat lands of the Dakotas sent me an email with cats in them, I sat up to take notice.  I had no clue that they had cats there.  He said these pictures were taken about three miles southwest of Esmond, North Dakota, about 60 miles from where his folks live.  I had to get my map out because I had never heard of Esmond ND.  Shock of shocks, there it was about 125 miles west of Grand Forks.  When I have been in Grand Forks and looked west, it looked so flat and endless I thought I could see all the way around the world and see the back of my head.  But here is proof that there are trees besides telephone poles( the state tree) in North Dakota.  And in the woods lives at least three cats.

 North Dakota Felines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing up in Northern Minnesota I always assumed that Mountain Lions were only in the western mountains.  I remember getting pretty excited when we went out to cut pulp wood one winter day and found the tracks and the print of a cat that had sat down in the snow and left a fan in the snow were its tail had went back and forth.  Since moving out west I have only had two sightings of this animal but have seen their paw prints aplenty in the snow on occasions, so they are out there.  These cats are deadly hunters and have proved it wherever they have had a chance to prosper.  In Oregon where the misguided voters chose to do away with hunting them with dogs, they have multiplied to the point where they have killed off some of the best deer hunting spots in the state.  They seem to really prosper in mountainous areas where the deer, and sheep will lay up in the rocks because they can stalk in on them from above.

They all appear to be about the same size.  Wonder why they were running together as cats are pretty independant and territorial. 

 

 

 

 

 

Sue’s brother, was helping his wife on a elk hunt a couple years ago in the Snake River area in Oregon.  While he was scanning an elk herd with his binoculars, he noticed a cow lagging behind the herd and as his glasses stopped on her, a yellow fur ball came barrelling out of the brush and hit the cow on the front shoulders knocking her completely over a rock cliff.  So if their dinner is to big they figure out other ways of dispatching them.

Benji with G’pa Ed, his cat and one the cat running dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

Like so many of the predators that we are competing with for hunting opportunities, a person ought to take advantage of any chance to in turn hunt them.  We’ve taken plenty of coyotes, a very few bear, no wolf as of yet, and only the one lion that our oldest son Benji got about six years ago.  He is terribly allergic to cats, both the tame and wild kind he found out, so the hide hangs in my office.  Nice of me to hang on to it for him don’t you think?  They are a beautiful animal, but also a deadly predator.

Benji’s rug.  They aren’t near as distructive when the hides off of them.

Tags: Cats, Cougars, Mountain Lion, North Dakota, Preditor