Visiting Tucson? Meet one of the locals...
We live in a senior community of 5K homes just 6 miles up the road from Catalina State Park. We are at 3,300' at the foot of and about 5 miles from Mt Lemon {9,200'}. Here are a couple of shots on...
Forum Discussion
Grit dog wrote:
I get defending the territory of big cats. They're one of the most impressive animals for strength agility, adaptability etc.
But any of you who think your chances of a bad encounter with a cougar are not a real concern if in their habitat where they're present are sorely mistaken.
You may actually be using the Walmart parking lot as a basis for your theory. Or you're just a granola munching leaf licker who's in denial of the actual food chain once you exit the safety of your Subaru!
Go get yourself stalked by one and come back with the same view. You either won't come back or you won't have the same view.
It's just like wolves. The statistics involving human encounters seems innocuous. Only a few attacks a year. That's becasue there's relatively few that actually venture into their natural habitat enough to contribute to the statistics.
In the State of Arizona, there has been no reports of deaths from any mountain lion attack going back to the early 1900s. But, since 2000, over 25 people have DIED from attacks by africanized bees in populated areas. Africanized bees is Arizona's number one wildlife killer, surpassing rattle snake bites. Mountain lions don't even have a category and is lumped in with generic mammals. You have greater chance each year in AZ of being killed by rushing water on a wash compared to getting attacked by a mountain lion. So, tell em again why we need to be all fair weather RV camper scared out of our wits over some rare sighting of a mountain lion in a mountain lion habitat.
And just cause its now becoming a joke in AZ over the fear reaction to the story, Montini wrote that the headlines are wrong. he said (and many agree) it should have said "Retirees spotted in mountain lion's territory!" I mean what's next, some old retiree in their RV demanding national guard protection because they saw a scorpion?
