# Yikes! Look what was photographed on our farm in northwest Missouri!



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Check this out! We have 4 more photos taken with a trail cam, but this is the best. I hope my husband is very careful when he's harvesting our corn and soybeans on this farm! I don't want to hear anyone else say that mountain lions aren't in our neck of the woods! (There have been numerous sightings over the years, but this is the best (and only) photo that we've seen.


----------



## intinst (Dec 23, 2008)

Yikes indeed! Now the only question is whether it is a "wild" one or a "pet" that someone grew tired of caring for. Not that it matters for someones safety.


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

intinst said:


> Yikes indeed! Now the only question is whether it is a "wild" one or a "pet" that someone grew tired of caring for. Not that it matters for someones safety.


Apparently, it's a wild one. In fact, I don't think that the trail cam caught only this one, as the other images (especially one) look different. A guy who lives near here said that he saw two half-grown cubs in his driveway recently, so I'm guess that we have a breeding population. Our hired man swears that he saw a mountain lion just down the road from our drive (less than 1/8 mile away from the house) last spring. He and my husband headed down the road in his pickup to see if it was still in the trees or near the road, but it was gone by then. That was pretty close to our home and our farm pond, so I'm going to be careful. Anytime there's a breeding population of a species, it seems to me that there's usually a scenario in which a mother could be protecting her brood, and that could spell trouble. (We had a bobcat in our implement shed which is about 20 yards from our house, but that's not terribly unusual, nor is it something that we've not seen in photos taken by neighbors.)


----------



## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

Just think of it as something to help keep the population down for those annoying deer.


----------



## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

Holy cow! We have trouble enough with coyotes in Ohio. That would scare the bejeebers out of me. Hope there isn't any small livestock close by.


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

NogDog said:


> Just think of it as something to help keep the population down for those annoying deer.


You're not the first person to say that. Someone the other day made the same comment, and then we both laughed as we thought about how much more we would dislike seeing mountain lions with the same frequency that we now see deer. I do think that the mountain lions might be a bit more intelligent than deer, considering the fact that I have stopped to let deer cross only to have one or two of them turn and run right back across the road. One even put his head (with antlers) down and charged my car, hitting my car right between the driver's door and the rear passenger door. (That seems pretty dumb to me, given the fact that I let him cross the road w/o hitting him.) Anyway, it seems crazy to think that we now have a breeding population of mountain lions/cougars. My husband shot a 270 lb. wild boar just across the road from our house a few years ago, but that made more sense to me than mountain lions. I'm beginning to see why my husband takes his pistol (along with his iPhone and a cup of coffee) with him when he takes his morning walks here in the boondocks.


----------



## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

We're in SW MO, near Table Rock Lake.  Hoping the cats don't move this way.  Great pic


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

N. Gemini Sasson said:


> Holy cow! We have trouble enough with coyotes in Ohio. That would scare the bejeebers out of me. Hope there isn't any small livestock close by.


We have enough coyotes around here to cause problems, too. There are herds of cattle, as well as a large hog confinement operation nearby. (We raised lots of hogs for 35 years. Glad we don't have them now.)


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

EGranfors said:


> We're in SW MO, near Table Rock Lake. Hoping the cats don't move this way. Great pic


I love the Table Rock area. (My husband would love to retire there.) I had lots of relatives in Springfield, but many have now passed away, leaving only cousins. I hope your area doesn't get the cats. I know that there are some in se MO. Still not sure how they got here. Must have come in from the west and northwest as a result of fires and floods.


----------



## Tinker (Oct 3, 2011)

Eeek! I'm guessing a trail cam is a remote operated camera? What an amazing picture, though scary to think of bumping into that cat one night.


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

Tinker said:


> Eeek! I'm guessing a trail cam is a remote operated camera? What an amazing picture, though scary to think of bumping into that cat one night.


I think a trail cam is a camera that's activated by movement. Obviously, the paw print wouldn't have been captured that way, but I'm sure the other photos were taken late at night without anyone actually coming face to face with the cat(s). (We think there is more than one based on the photos that were taken.) I warn my husband to be careful every time he heads out to the field, but he's currently harvesting soybeans on the farm where the cats were spotted, so I tell him several times to be careful and to stay in the combine whenever possible. He tolerates me.


----------



## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

Oh how scary!! That is a great picture, but you and your neighbors better stay safe.


----------



## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

I've been told by conservationists that we are probably safe, as there is a huge surplus of deer in our area, and mountain lions/cougars don't usually attack people. The fact that there might well be a breeding population is a bit disconcerting because of the way mothers protect their young. Think I'll try to stay out of the way of big cats, just to be safe.


----------



## gina1230 (Nov 29, 2009)

Wow!  Amazing picture.


----------

