Snakes are welcome here. Maybe I won't feel the same when I see a rattler, but so far I haven't. Even the wife doesn't mind snakes in the garden, and there are plenty of them. We have more snakes here than anywhere I have lived.
Don't understand the denial with the snakes. We were given the same for the mountain lions. I know they are here, have seen two and heard a female in heat pretty close up. We got some cliffs above us. I suspect she may have hung out there, haven't heard or seen any this year. The development part i don't buy, they would just kill the cats and build.
Exactly. So when presented with evidence of a cat's existence by members of the community how do you expect "they'd" react? "Golly, What great luck that this previously thought to be extinct species has been found alive and well in our area! Well, I guess having to run every instalation of a mailbox post or hanging of a screen door in a two hundred mile radius past the local con-com and hope they make a determination of negative impact and don't kick it up to the state or fed epa is a small price to pay for the opportunity to restore the population of this glorious animal!" Or "Nope. DNA testing shows your cougar to actually be just a house cat/escaped from captivity/wandered off from western blood lines. Now get out of my hair. I've got to go help my pal pick up those campaign contributions from the guy in that bulldozer"
Yep, that's exactly it. I was told what i had seen was a Bobcat. After all they get pretty big friend of ours has a couple of Bobcats, niece kitties. Bigger than house cats, well yes but as big as Mountain Lions? Hardly! Those guys are pretty impressive. I remember coming home telling my husband i had seen a lion. No lions in Arkansas! I don't suffer from hallucinations and after a while talking to other people and then seeing a second lion, all their explanations didn't wash anymore. Lions here, yes. Alive and well and breeding. One of the two i saw was a younger one still with marking on his legs. Wished i'd had a camera at the time. They are incredibly beautiful animals.
A few years back I was elk hunting in Wyoming in mid Nov snow on the ground 6-12” deep for the most part. I was up high on an south facing slope and stopped to glass for a while when I heard “tic-tic-tic” looked down and not 2 feet in front of me was a 2.5’ rattle snake sunning on a snow free rock!
