Government Hunters’ Encounters With Ferocious Puma

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The appetite for horse meat has often changed the puma from hunted to hunter. A puma such as this gave one government predator hunter the most thrilling quarter hour of his exciting career. His hounds had pursued the puma into a canyon after hours on the trail. The going was so hazardous, he had to tie his horse to a tree and continue on foot behind his dogs. Glancing up the hunter noticed the puma had doubled back and was now edging the rim of the canyon towards his horse. 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 trouble 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 mountains west of Maryland. By 1880, puma were nearly exterminated east of the Mississippi. Despite this, puma remained a serious danger 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 over 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 track 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 most impressive weighing 227 pounds.

Roosevelt narrowly avoided fatal injury on one of these expeditions. Roosevelt’s hounds had brought an old female to bay. Three of his fighting dogs had the puma by the head, so brash 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 moment the puma wrenched its head free and targeted Roosevelt. One of Teddy’s fighting dogs got a fresh hold on the old cat’s paw. Roosevelt jammed 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 unpredictable of all predators. On occasion 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 sometimes 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’ Encounters With Ferocious Puma
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