[Guerrilla]

Some excitement up here today. As I was sipping coffee and debating with myself to run gas lines or install windows today, I heard an announcement for a lost dog on our road. With about 60 parcels spread along 10 miles, it did not surprise me to hear it was one of our close neighbors and family friends. Their dog nelly was missing.

About fifteen minutes ago, I got a call from my boss at the ranch that my next door neighbor had a few recent run ins with our local lions and was planning on taking a nuisance tag out.

So, I have to be up at the ranch in an hour, but I've tossed my pack into the truck and will be trying to find nelly. I hope the silly dog ran off after a
****, but I'm taking rock climbing gear, as the dog was probably pulled downslope if it was a mountain lion.

My boss has a bunch of stuff for me to drop off to my neighbor who has been talking about shooting a cat. Probably bs about how to keep cats from getting habituated, and how we are tresspassers in their world. I'll drop it off, but of our lion has become habituated, and has killed one neighbors dog and has been stalking another neighbors kids, I also hope to be able to hand him photos of a lion kill so he can get his lion tag.

Actually, I hope I get to nellys home and find her wagging her tail at the gate, but the coincidences are piling up.

As a bit of background, we live on a front range ridge, so it's not so much that we have animal encounters as the fact that we live amongst them. I've seen the bears and mountain lion, and feel privledged to live in such proximity with such amaIng creatures, but if a lion has been stalking kids up here, it's time to open up it's range to a more timid cat.

 

[madcritter]

Keep us posted on the out come.
thanks

 

[Hill Walker]

That makes my day of staring at a screen and typing on a keyboard sound ever so slightly mundane and pointless by comparison. I tell you what mate I am tempted to print out your post and tape it to the door of my office to show my colleagues that there are people out there leading real lives. How do you find these lions, do you track them?

 

[kajunman1]

Hill Walker,
Were you reading my mind through my cubical walls? Things have been strange in the cube today. I left for a while and came back to a pile of debris on my seat and a flashing red light on my communicator. Put the debris beside the other debris, on the platform, the I made sure I had a good connection to system, and prepared to pound the "backspace" when a wrong letter crossed my path.

All jokes aside, I hope Nelly is OK. Wish I was there to live. You know in a life time time a man is lucky to have one good dog.

 

[ki3dragon]

Yep, I second what Kajunman1 said. I wish I could be there also and pray for the best.

 

[Guerrilla]

still no sign of nelly, though there are two odd slide/drag trails coming up from the road by her house. No blood or buzzards, however, which is how I've pinpointed lion kills in the past. We did some light scouting for blood, and I'm going to hike the bear trail along the ridge tomorrow to look for track and scat. We aren't planning on tracking the cat. Rather, we're going to need to prove the lion has become habituated, and until somebody finds a missing pet that can proove a lion kill, we won't get it. I've pulled the 30.06 back down from the ranch, along with a 45. I havnt seen anything near the cabin, but it does wander along our part of the ridge, on the other half of our parcel.once we get the tag, we'll simply have to wait. A cougar can have a range of 25 square miles, and can tale up to a month to wander it's path, or it can get from one side I the other overnight. With nearly nothing but wilderness out here, were not going to be able to track the cat. Though I may try early next week after the coming snowstorm. Not hoping for much, just curious to try.

And thanks for thekind words guys, less than a decade ago, I was in one of the cubicles, and nothing has ever made me miss it except living up here having to constantly work for water, power, and even shelter as I finih this cabin. Don't get me wrong, I love it and this is where I am meant to be, but I miss getting off work, drinking a beer and playing a videogame rather than getting off work and trying to rebuild the atrter on the generator before the batteries die.

Sorry, it's been a long day on the mountain, and I'm bummed about nelly and trying to figure things out. Time for beer.