OCR Text |
Show C'OCGAIS An elementary science course of study written by some educators for an important city in the tiast says that the mountain lion anu coungar disappeared from the nearby hills at about the same time. This might be elaborated to say that the mountain lion, cougar, painter, puma, panther, catamount, cata-mount, mountain uevil, red tiger, mountain screamer, silver uon, purple panther, brown tiger, sneaK cat, king cat and varmim also clia-appeared clia-appeared at tne same time. Tney aic all the same animal nu niacin what you call them nor where you find them. While eignt races have been recognized the animals aru unquestionably all the same species, Folia couguar. Originally the cougar ranged over practically all of the United Stales with a few specimens reported re-ported from Maine and along the southern border of Canada. They are still to be found rather regularly regu-larly in southern British Columbia and Alberta. The range extends south to I'aLagoni.i. Kxcept for Florida, parts of Louisiana and southern Texas, these eats have probably been exterminated in the United States east of the Plains stales. A cougar may measure 9 feet I : . L A - , , " '': rxv ' 1 , it, ' J, ;OT ! i. i ' & JL 1 1 brown except that the under parts are lighter. The fur is short, close and uniform. The whiskers are rather prominent. A cougar is a powerful animal capable of dragging a 900 pound moose 300 feet over snow. It can jump straight up for a distance of 15 feet and can leap safely down a distance of 60 feet. An individual in-dividual usually claims a territory that may be 60 miles across and in a single night may travel 20 miles. While black bears are known to relish pigs, wolves are known to favor cattle. Similarly coyotes seem to enjoy killing sheep but the cougar definitely favors horses and deer. In the rarest of instances it has been known to attack man. They may serve a useful function func-tion in keeping the multiplcation of deer under control. The famous story of killing off the cougars of the Kiabab forest only to have the deer multiply so that they starved in the resulting competition competi-tion for food is a standard story in all conservation programs. It illustrates definitely that predators, preda-tors, whether they are fish, birds, insects or mammals, serve a useful use-ful function in the economy of nature. Cougars are usually hunted by dogs with the hunters following on horses. When possible a pursued pur-sued paraa takes to a tree to escape es-cape the dogs. There it is shot, photographed, lassoed or otherwise used to satisfy the whim of man. Cougars pair possibly for life. The one to five spotted young may be born blind for about 9 days, crawl at 7 weeks, eat their frist meat at 3 months, axe weaned at about 4 months, retain their spots to 18 months and remain with the mother from 1 to 2 years. With exceptional luck a cougar might i live to a ripe old age of 20 years. 1 It would seem that these ani-! mals under o rdinary circumstances circum-stances should not be completely destroyed in a given area suitable with a 3 foot tail. The weight goes up to 200 pounds. The sexes are colored alike a uniformly yellow to their needs- This may be questioned ques-tioned by some in the West, of course. But even those who think of cougars only as varmints may recognize that men to get sport from hunting them and sport is quite important in the lives of many people. E. Laurence Palmer |