Outdoor News Daily

An apparently malnourished young mountain lion entered a Chaffee County residence Thursday afternoon, killing one dog and briefly trapping a mother and her two children inside the house until Chaffee County Sheriffs Deputies evacuated them.

Colorado Division of Wildlife officers were able to tranquilize the lion, which appeared to be significantly underweight for its age, according to DOW Area Wildlife Manager Jim Aragon. After evaluating the lion’s condition, Aragon said, a decision was made to euthanize the animal.

It is highly unusual for a mountain lion to enter a building. “We will know more after we get the results of the necropsy, but this animal was not demonstrating normal behavior,” Aragon said.
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A mountain lion was shot and killed by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission at a ranch northwest of Rushville on Sunday, Feb. 21.

Commission law enforcement personnel were notified early Sunday morning of a mountain lion hiding under a livestock trailer near the ranch house. Because of the proximity of the cat to the house and the people on site, the situation was determined to be a safety risk by the responding conservation officer.

The mountain lion was a female, weighing approximately 100 pounds. It did not appear to have been nursing kittens. It was the 96th confirmed mountain lion sighting in Nebraska since 1991 and the 68th in the Pine Ridge.

It never ceases to amaze me. We just wrapped up a big event in the Everglades, in which we trained hunters on how to capture and remove nonnative snakes, and we sent them out to test their skills. It was a cold, damp day. The experts said the pythons would be hiding due to the inclement weather.

The media that gathered were not optimistic. In fact, none of us were. We pretty much resigned ourselves to the prospect that the hunters might go home empty-handed. But sure enough, a team of freshly trained hunters spotted a 5-foot Burmese python in the brush along the L-67 levee. The hunter told us he was able to spot and stalk the snake after receiving our training. He had never caught a wild python before. It just goes to show these snakes are out there, and they are more common than we might think.
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A raccoon and a fox found dead on ranchland in Sierra County have tested positive for rabies. No known human or pet exposures were reported. The New Mexico Department of Health and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are urging pet and livestock owners in Sierra County and surrounding areas to protect their dogs, cats, horses and other valuable livestock by getting them vaccinated against rabies.

The raccoon was submitted by a private veterinarian, and a New Mexico Department of Game and Fish officer picked up the fox last week. Both animals were found on ranchland about 15 miles southwest of Truth or Consequences and tested positive at the Department of Health’s Scientific Laboratory in Albuquerque. Testing done at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta confirmed that both animals had the Arizona gray fox rabies strain. Fox rabies has been a problem for several decades in Arizona and spread into western New Mexico and was first detected in the Glenwood area in 2007.
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