Yesterday morning I woke up to find Sadie had been attacked during the night, by what Doc thinks was a mountain lion. He’s treated several other horses this year with the same wounds, one of them died from it’s wounds. It also looked like Sadie had been running all night, as she’d lost a bunch of weight in just 12 hours.
These long claw-like scratches were only down the one side. She also had small, shallow punctures on top of her back, grouped together as a large paw might be.
This was the worst of the wounds and required stitches. She also had two small punctures on the inside of her front left leg that you can’t see in the picture. There were no wounds at all on her right side.
Doc thinks the chest wounds are from her going through something to get away from whatever was attacking her. Usually a mountain lion will attack from the back, grabbing at the hips and biting on top of the back and haunches. Glenn came home Thursday so he was out with me yesterday looking for fence that had been torn down, but we didn’t find any.
The DNR for West Virginia refuses to admit that there are mountain lions here. Rumor has it that they released the big cats years ago to help control the deer population and they don’t want to be held responsible for incidents like this. However, they’ll be happy to tell you that hunting the animal is illegal. I’m not sure I see the point in that law since they don’t exist?
All I’ve got to say is that if it happens again, Glenn will be doing some night hunting and I don’t care if shooting them is illegal!
6 comments:
Oh, I hope she'll be ok! It looks really nasty.
Are you allowed to shoot if you see it attack? (fat chance, but still) Isn't there a law for protecting your livelyhood or your livestock, something like that?
We've had black panthers down here before.
Good luck - keep us posted!
Oh my! Poor baby! I hope she heals well. Do you have lots of honey for her wounds?
As for hunting, I say go for it. If it's on your property or threatning your animals, and a danger..it's on.
OMG....Poor Sadie!!! Hope she is doing better today!
Oh no! I hope Sadie heals soon.
Poor Sadie! Geeze. My uncle has been seeing signs of bear in the area out there..but it's most likely a cat. You should get a wildlife camera and put it out there and see what you get pics of. We have mostly coyotes and fox around our pasture and they leave stuff alone for the most part, we used to have some sort of wildcats up in the caves above the house and they would squal and screech during mating season but I think those were the bobcats, not mountain lions...although I have heard SEVERAL people say they have seen the so called "non-existent" mountain lions in WV. I've even done a little research online and read of several accounts which the DNR denies. I've also heard a few eyewitness accounts of large non-native rattlesnakes being dropped in sacks in the woods in the Ritchie county area by the DNR. I hope Sadie recovers quickly and everyone's doing well out there!
She's pretty lucky that that's all the worse she got... definitely looks like a cat to me.
Then from your recent post, it sounds like you need some herd protection. Donkeys are good for that too!
Post a Comment