Government Hunters
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The appetite for horse meat has often changed the puma from hunted to
hunter. A puma acting thusly gave one government hunter
the most
stimulating fifteen minutes of his career. After tracking the cat for
several hours the trail led into a canyon. Here the trail was so
perilous the hunter had to follow his dogs on foot. When he glanced up,
he saw a puma creeping along the rim of the canyon towards the tree he
had tied his mount to. The puma struck as the hunter and his dogs
closed in. The hunter shot the cat with his .30/30 rifle as it jumped
onto his horse‘s back.
Puma caused a great deal of distress for early settlers of the South
and East, but they were gradually eradicated by hunters such as Meshach
Browning. Browning killed more than 50 puma in the forty-four years he
spent hunting the rough country west of Maryland. By 1880, puma were
nearly exterminated east of the Mississippi. Despite this, puma
remained a serious threat throughout the West for many years. The puma
were so adroit at keeping out of sight, that only a few were killed in
chance encounters with sportsmen or cowhands; which caused stockmen to
hire professional hunters to rid the range of them.
John B. Goff was one of the most well-known of these professional
hunters. Goff killed greater than three hundred pumas from 1855-1900,
most of them in the rough country north of the White River in
northwestern Colorado. Goff used foxhounds to trail his quarry and
mongrel fighting dogs to keep it cornered until he could kill it. In
1901 Theodore Roosevelt, then Vice President, went hunting with Goff in
20-below-zero weather. They were out five weeks and killed fourteen
puma, the largest weighing 227 pounds.
Roosevelt narrowly avoided serious injury on one of these expeditions.
Roosevelt’s dogs had brought an old puma to bay. Three of his fighting
dogs had the puma by the head, so impulsive T.R., his six-gun in his
left hand a long hunting knife in his right, leaped in to make the
kill. At the same instant the puma wrenched its head free and targeted
Roosevelt. One of Teddy’s fighting dogs got a fresh grip on the old
cat’s paw. Roosevelt crammed the butt of his gun into its mouth and, as
the sharp teeth crushed it, killed the animal with a thrust of the
knife between its shoulders.
The puma is one of the most capricious of all predators. Sometimes the
cat cannot be found, even in areas where it is known to be plentiful
and others it has been known to stalk and even attack men. Their varied
reactions to dogs are more evidence of the unpredictability of the
puma. Despite growing to over 200 pounds and being armed with paws and
wickedly sharp claws, they will sometimes allow a single wire haired
terrier to run them up a tree and keep them there. Yet other times a
puma will choose to fight to the death with a pack of dogs, and may
kill several of them before the hunter can get in a finishing shot.
Government Hunters
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