victor3ranger
Well-Known Member
The description you used about the injuries seen on the horse is identical to the ones I saw on a whitetail doe that I shot many years ago.I'm way down here in TX, about 90 miles inland from the coast. About 20 years ago (seems odd that it was that long ago) my ex wife's horse was killed. She sent photos of the horse asking people what they thought killed it. It had clear, parallel claw marks from its front shoulders, down the back, and down the rear haunches. TPWD came out and said a pack of dogs ran it into a fence :/ The town she lives in has less than 200 people in it. It's barely a town. There's no pack of dogs. The marks looked like a big cat had jumped on it's back and tried to drag it down. They asked the game warden about it being a mountain lion. Nah... they aren't in Texas. Big Bend NP has them. I've seen the tracks down in the desert and up in the high Chisos when I visit there. There's a video of a Mountain Lion taking a deer down up in the Chisos. Big cats (Cougar, Mountain Lion, whatever your want to call it) show up on game cameras from time to time. So do big black cats. The final proof for me came last year. I was driving the backroads around some rice fields, maybe 5-10 miles from where the horse was killed, coming home from the range I shoot at. I turned west on about 3 miles of straight dirt road and saw something running away from me 1/8 mile or so ahead of me. It was yellowish tan and both rear feet moved forward together, like a cat. I sped up to get a better look but it cut into the high Johnson grass next to a big irrigation canal and disappeared. It was big. I stopped where it disappeared into the grass. My dumb-etc didn't (A) get out and look for tracks (I liked it inside my metal and glass box) and (B) pick up the DSLR with a 200mm lens on it to try to get a photo of it or tracks. I've talked to people that farm down there and work in the rice fields. They've seen them.
So when a wildlife department professional says, nope, that's impossible... I check the yep, that's what they saw box. Animals go where they can and want to go.
I made a poor shot and she ran about 300+ yards when she was attacked by something.
After tracking her down I came across her still steaming, I know that cougar was sitting in the bushes watching me dang near crap my pants when I realized the situation I was in.
I was told the same thing by the game wardens, but even later after several times actually seeing the cats close up in person they still denied it