A few of us at my lodge was sitting around swapping stories not long ago. We happen to have a retired game warden in our membership. So a few of his experiences was quite entertaining to say the least. He proceeded to tell us how he caught a moutain lion by hand He was called by a local fire dept who claimed to have a moutain lion running loose around there station. Well mountain lions do not inhabit our state at least to my knowledge they don't. So he assumes people are seeing a bobcat which are native in our state and he assumed they just don't know the difference being city people and decides he had other fish to fry as deer season was in full swing and did not investigate A couple days later they called again and this time he was obligated to go check the complaint due to second call. He stated I went with the intentions of just showing up and going through the typical bs call motions. On arrival he said they come out of the station and told him that it had just walked over the hill and pointed him in that direction He proceeded over the hill expecting to see a bobcat. Over the hill he indeed did see a cat however it wasn't a bobcat as he had expected. He said I'll be dammed it was a moutain lion. And it was on him before he could even blink however it didn't attack. He stated after I checked my pants to see if they was wet and in disbelief I find this SOB rubbing up aginst me like a housecat. He went on to say here I am standing in the woods with a moutain lion who could take me out any second yet is acting like a house cat. Still nervous and on the verge of wetting his self he said I stood there and thought what the hell am I going to do with this thing . I can't leave it here and I don't want to kill it. So he takes his gun out of holster and takes his gun belt off and makes a leash with his belt. Gun in one hand ready he got the cat leashed and was thinking the whole time this thing is going to go three shades of ape crap crazy why am I doing this. To his surprise he said the damm thing came right along like he was waking a poodle. He stated he knew it had to be a pet that got loose. So here he goes waking a mt lion on a gun belt leash to the fire station where is vehicle was parked which happened to be a suv. He got the thing into his vehicle. The best part was the guys on shift at the fire dept jaws was hanging. He said they thought I could walk on water They asked how in the hell did you manage that without getting attacked. Of course he played it off like its was no big deal and they handle things like this all the time yada yada So he leaves with the cat and heads down the expressway. His vehicle wasn't equipped with a cage or containment panel. He said the looks he was getting going down the road with a mt lion riding in the passenger seat looking out the window was priceless. To shorten the story up it turns out the mt lion was stolen from some kind of private zoo in Ohio and the thieves was getting nervous driving with a mt lion in the car and turned it loose close by to the fire station where he found it
Great story! I'll bet he's got a million of 'em. Game wardens can run into anything on any given day.
I think it would be a good job, and almost went into that field when I was younger. I couldn't stand the thought of working through deer season every year though, so I abandoned the idea.
I'll bet the owner was happy and grateful when they were re-united. Happy to have the "pet" back and grateful the GW wasn't telling him about a mountain lion that "charged him" and he had to dispatch it... Tense moment for sure! Sounds like a fair reasonable man.
Actually that was the as they say the rest of the story. He got stuck with the thing for several weeks while they looked for a place to take the cat. Basically a bunch of legal issues come into play different states with different laws regarding owning a wild and potentially dangerous animal at a unlicensed zoo Eventually they the state actually told him to dispatch the cat as no appropriate places was available to take the animal. He said he didn't want to do it that it was such s beautiful cat he couldn't stand doing it so he had a taxidermist friend scheduled to come do it so it could be mounted and then donated to somewhere. To shorten it up a rescue place did wind up taking the cat
We had a similar story here in Ontario last year about 100 miles east of Toronto. A cougar was seen wandering in peoples yards before being eventually captured. http://www.torontosun.com/2014/12/03/ontario-cougar-was-captive-not-wild-and-is-doing-just-fine Maybe the police in the above community learned something from this incident from a couple of years before that didn't end as well. A cougar was seen for several days around a community about a 150 miles north of Toronto. That cat was shot and killed by police after it killed a family dog. The follow up to the story is that once the cat was examined, It had had it's claws surgical removed like a house cat proving it too had escaped or was released. http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/09/ontario-cops-kill-cougar
