Pictures Loin

[jimbosan]

Published Sunday January 25, 2009
Hunting for deer, boys find lion
BY DAVID HENDEE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER


What to do in an encounter Do not approach a mountain lion. Leave the animal an avenue to escape. Stay calm. Move slowly. Back away safely if you can. Don't turn your back to the animal or start running. Lift up children to prevent them from running. Raise your arms or backpack to appear larger. If attacked, fight back. Mountain lions have been fended off with bare hands. Use rocks, sticks or whatever you can get your hands on. Try to remain on your feet. Get up if knocked down.

Source: Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
Tyler Jines of Alliance isn't sure who was more surprised when they met face to face in a timbered canyon - the mountain lion or him.



The carcass of a 97-pound female mountain lion killed Nov. 22, 2008, near Chadron, Neb., is displayed in the box of a pickup truck.

It was the last weekend of rifle deer season and 16-year-old Tyler was hunting mule deer in rugged hills south of Chadron when the close encounter with a cougar occurred.

"She stepped over a fallen log and hesitated. We both hesitated. I think we startled each other," Tyler said.

Other hunters in the party startled a mountain lion at the far end of the canyon 15 minutes earlier and watched it slip away but had no way to alert hunting partners down the slope.

When the cougar emerged from timber on a game trail, it apparently saw 12-year-old Tanner Kickland of Chadron. Tanner heard something walking over dry pine needles and brushing past branches, but didn't see the cougar when it appeared on his right.

Then the mountain lion and Tyler spotted each other.

The cougar crouched. It looked back and forth at Tyler and Tanner. The boys were sitting about 25 yards apart. The big cat's tail went up. It was poised midway between the boys.

"I pulled up my gun and hesitated to shoot," Tyler said. "I didn't know what to do. I was scared. I just aimed at her head. I wasn't going to give her another chance."

The cougar looked at Tanner. When it glanced back at Tyler, the boy fired his Remington rifle. The .30-06-caliber bullet went through the cat's right eye. The mountain lion fell in its tracks.

Tyler's shot got Tanner's attention. Then a shaking Tyler walked toward him, asking if he'd seen the cougar.

"Tyler said it was stalking me at first and then it turned to him," Tanner said.

Tanner was unarmed, except for a small knife in a pocket and a deer-gutting knife in a fanny pack. He shot his first deer the weekend before - a five-point muley - and wasn't hunting this day.

Tyler's kill created buzz around Chadron. Some Internet chatterers praised his quick thinking and sure shooting. Others criticized him.

Cougars cannot be hunted or trapped in Nebraska. People, however, are permitted to defend themselves without penalty if a mountain lion attacks or shows unprovoked aggression toward people. Tyler wasn't ticketed.

Mountain lion sightings in the Pine Ridge are rare but not uncommon. A car hits a cougar now and then. But rarely do hunters find themselves faced with a potentially dangerous predator and making a split-second decision on how to react.

Tanner's dad has no doubt that Tyler did the right thing.

"That mountain lion could have got my boy in two bounces. It's a scary deal," Loren Kickland said.

The cougar was a rare specimen in Nebraska because it was female - and it was a hefty 97 pounds. The adult cat was the fourth of five confirmed females in Nebraska during the last century, according to Sam Wilson, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's mountain lion expert in Lincoln.

A Game and Parks trail camera recently snapped a photo of a female cougar and a cub in the Chadron area. Wilson said female cougars are significant because it means that a resident population is possible.

The rocky, forested Pine Ridge is ideal cougar habitat. The cats prey on deer, porcupines and small game. Most of Nebraska's 68 confirmed cougar sightings since 1991 - some of them duplicates - were in northwest Nebraska between Chadron and Harrison.

The region is immediately south of a growing population of mountain lions in South Dakota's Black Hills. South Dakota's mountain lion hunting season opened Jan. 1 and at least 18 cougars have been killed in the Black Hills, according to the state's Game, Fish and Parks Department. The season closes March 31, or earlier if a quota of 35 lions total or 15 females is reached.

The weekend before his party's encounter, Loren Kickland said other hunters saw a mountain lion two miles east of the spot were Tyler shot the cougar. A muzzleloader reported two cougars eating the carcass of a three-point mule deer about four miles east last month. A deer hunter in a tree stand watched a cougar chasing a mule deer doe a year or so ago. There was an unconfirmed sighting in Chadron on Jan. 16.

"It's inevitable someone's going to run across one," Kickland said.

Tyler and Tanner were part of a group of seven adults and four boys hunting about 12 miles south of Chadron in a Nebraska National Forest canyon.

The boys and three others flanked the canyon. Two men, Loren Kickland and Steve Steinman of Alliance, were positioned at the bottom of the steep ravine to block the opening. The remaining four hunters walked down the canyon from south to north to push deer ahead of them.

"We've done that many times before and often get a nice buck out there," Kickland said.

But no deer came out of the canyon. Only the cougar.

"There's a reason the deer aren't there," Kickland said. "Mountain lions."


• Contact the writer: 444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

[OldBaldGuy]

Some Internet chatterers praised his quick thinking and sure shooting. Others criticized him.

I wonder what the "second-guessers" would have said if the cat had mauled one of those kids?

[obert]

Mountain lion sightings in the Pine Ridge are rare but not uncommon.

I'm still trying to figure this one out.

[racksniper]

Originally Posted by obert

I'm still trying to figure this one out.

Yeah thats a bad situation for a kid to be in, if it would have been a grown person they probably would have been ticketed.

[jimbosan]

I wouldn't have taken the chance. I suppose a kid would have been scared out of his witts. There is another story in the paper about catamount that was tranquilized in the Scotts Bluff area by a law enforcement officer.

[DiggerDog]

Originally Posted by OldBaldGuy

I wonder what the "second-guessers" would have said if the cat had mauled one of those kids?

Exactly. The kid did the right thing.

[Hookem]

Interesting. Good thing dad taught his son how to shoot straight and how to remain relatively calm in the field and in tense situations. Seconds count in those situations one way or the other! Good for dad and the boys!

[brian40]

Originally Posted by jimbosan

I wouldn't have taken the chance. I suppose a kid would have been scared out of his witts. There is another story in the paper about catamount that was tranquilized in the Scotts Bluff area by a law enforcement officer.

Little more than tranquilized!

JournalStar.com - Lincoln, Nebraska - News - Nebraska

[BPbowhunter]

I'm not sure I would have done any differently if than this kid if I was put in that situation.

[jimbosan]

Your right he did kill it, I didn't read the article closely enough. I just seen the dart thing and thought he drugged it!

Scottsbluff officer kills mountain lion
SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission says a Scottsbluff police officer shot a mountain lion that had wandered into a neighborhood.

Conservation officer Scott Brandt says the 70-pound female cat was seen in a tree near Scottsbluff High School on Sunday morning. When she came down from the tree, the police officer shot her, causing critical injuries.

The cat ran, but was found in a garage a few blocks away. Brandt says he then euthanized the cat with a dart gun.

Mountain lions — also known as cougars, pumas, panthers or catamounts — became a protected species under Nebraska law in 1995 and can’t be hunted. They can be killed if they are threatening livestock or the safety of others

[Alex T.]

Tanner was unarmed, except for a small knife in a pocket and a deer-gutting knife in a fanny pack

Sounds like enough weapon to get the job done.

Alex

[SKershaw]

Originally Posted by jimbosan

The adult cat was the fourth of five confirmed females in Nebraska during the last century, according to Sam Wilson, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission's mountain lion expert in Lincoln.

Misquote!!! Isn't the expert Mr. D. Bauer??? I hear he knows all there is to know about loins in Nebraska, even the secrets

[jimbosan]

I heard they were cross training Daryl to fly the black helocopters.

[jarredbehrendt]

Were the kids really small or what? The cat will run as long as they act large and make some noise, they react the same way a bear does. Sad.

[tmn515]

Originally Posted by OldBaldGuy

I wonder what the "second-guessers" would have said if the cat had mauled one of those kids?

What were the kids to do....pull out a cat toy and try to have some fun with the animal.....maybe some cat nip?

Troy

[nebgoosehunter]

I believe he did the right thing. I know I'd be scared out of my wits.

[Hookem]

Originally Posted by jarredbehrendt

Were the kids really small or what? The cat will run as long as they act large and make some noise, they react the same way a bear does. Sad.

If it went down as described and it was adults instead of kids, then yea give that a try first. If you had your own kids in that situation and want to tell them that, feel free, but no kids worth the chance the opposite could happen just as easy as not.

[jarredbehrendt]

Just saying, he had a bead on it already, trying to scare it by yelling at it before firing would not hurt.

[laughingwatr]

There is no mountain lion on earth worth risking your life for. You don't know what the thing is thinking, put a bullet in it and end the situation.

[thedarkarcher]

yah, those kids can't be expected to react like experts. it scares me though knowing the macho side of many hunters, how many people would have let it walk at that range in nebraska? fear is usually a product of lack of knowledge and "just shoot it" is a product of fear. anyway, i wonder why the guy shot that one in scottsbluff and didn't tranquilize it when it was in the tree?