Cougar in Farmington Hills?

[gman12]

Ch. 2 (Fox) had home vidieo of another Cougar in a Farmington Hills yard last night on 10 pm news. Maybe this is a good time of year to release pet Cougars, notify friends, family, and accuaintances with pet Cougars that now is a good time to release them. I'm beginning to think the guy pushing the cat hunting bill in Wisconson might be on to something, Mich. must have the biggest house cats in the nation. Just think, another big game to hunt.

[xringer223]

We need those big (CITY COUGARS ) around to catch thoses big city rats.
If only we could catch them both we could send them to washington D.C.
The only problem would be you could not tell the animals from the Politicians.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[woodsrat]

Ch. 2 (Fox) had home vidieo of another Cougar in a Farmington Hills yard last night on 10 pm news. Maybe this is a good time of year to release pet Cougars, notify friends, family, and accuaintances with pet Cougars that now is a good time to release them. I'm beginning to think the guy pushing the cat hunting bill in Wisconson might be on to something, Mich. must have the biggest house cats in the nation. Just think, another big game to hunt.

I was going to tell everybody I know who owns a Cougar to release them now. Only problem is, I don't know anyone who owns a Cougar. Come to think of it.....I've NEVER known anyone who has owned a pet Cougar.

Come to think of it......All the people I've asked don't know anyone who owns a Pet Cougar. Does anyone on this site know anyone who owns a pet Cougar?

As a cop for the last 20+ years going in and out of hundreds and hundreds of houses I've seen pet Bobcats (twice), Wolf-dog mixes, lots of reptiles, some pet pigs, goats, squirrels, racoons, opposums, etc. etc. Never a Cougar. Not saying that people don't have pet Cougars....what I'm saying is that there are not very many people who own pet Cougars. The people who own pet Cougars are rare. The sightings, video, photos, tracks, hair, scat evidence that has been collected is disproportionate to the number of pet Cougars that are out there.

Owning an unlicensed Cougar is a crime. People who own pet Cougars must belong to a secret society or something. They certainly keep their ownership of a Cougar a secret. Unlike other knucklehead criminals, these Cougar owners don't tell ANYBODY they are breaking the law. More than that, their knucklehead friends don't tell anyone about the pet Cougar they played fetch with. The cops hear about illegal things all the time, like murders, rapes, illegal drug sales, etc. You know, stuff that sends people to PRISON if it gets out. But we never hear about Billy-Bob with the pet Cougar. Hmmmmmm???????

With multi-state sightings, sightings in Ontario and Quebec, confirmed Cougars in states like Iowa. Where the heck are all of these pet Cougars coming from? Where does a guy buy a pet Cougar, anyway? Petsmart must have had one helluva Cougar sale and I missed it. :lol:

[deerslayer#1]

Those videos just show some of Jose Conseco's pet cats that got into his JUICE!
He brought them to Michigan and dumped them off!!

[Swamp Monster]

I'm sure Boehr can supply with some info on this if you would like him to. Just because one does not know anyone that owns Cougar does not mean some people don't And considering it's illegal if you are not properly licensed...I doubt someone would make small talk around a leo about such a critter unles they were licensed.

And more than likely, those that have them illegaly certainly aren't going to contact authorities when or of it gets loose. I tend to think there are more than people realize...they get them from a friend of a friend etc when they are small, than realize how big they get and how much food they can consume and how hard they are to keep without drawing soem attention etc.....to solve the dilema they are released to become someone else's problem. I don't think it's widespread, especialy today, but I bet there was a time it was more popular than many think.

Thats easier for me to believe than thinking we have numerous big cats running around the suburbs of Detroit....maybe they live underground most of the year!! Or maybe there were a couple up in the thumb and they heard the same report we heard about the possiblity of one down in Tecumseh...there just passin' thru to in hopes to find a girlfriend or boyfriend!

[woodsrat]

Swamp Monster. Read my post carefully. I fully acknowledge that there are people who own Cougars as pets. My point is, there have been hundreds (if not thousands) of sightings in multiple states and in the two eastern provinces of Canada. That is one heck of a lot of pet Cougars running around! If the cat's are tame how come nobody just hooks a leash on them and walks them to the nearest DNR office?

Let's scratch off 65% of the sightings as hoaxes, mistakes, escaped or released pets or just plain lies. That still leaves hundreds of sightings and other types of evidence like tracks, video, photos, hair and scat to be explained. Way too much for a few whacko's with pet Cougars. The government in Quebec says its last known Cougar was killed in 1938. That is a full 30 years AFTER Michigans "last known Cougar" was killed. Our great lakes don't surround us like a mote, we are a peninsula. An animal can cross the frozen Mackinac Straits without too much trouble. Our borders are not an impregnable fortress.

Where do you buy a pet Cougar? Do you know anyone who has owned or still owns a pet Cougar?

My other point is, apparently owning an illegal Cougar is the best kept criminal act known to mankind. Any other type of crime and the dummy's can't keep their mouth shut and neither can their friends or relatives. About three years ago, a woman in this neck of the woods owned a single, pet Bobcat. At least a dozen different people notified the police regarding the ownership of this cat. Why doesn't that happen with all of these hundreds of alleged Cougar owners? Especially when the cat escapes or is let go? How do these Cougar owners get the people in their life to swear to secrecy?

Boehr wrote that he knows of a number of illegally possessed, pet Cougars that were seized by the State/DNR. I believe that 100% and believe that if there were 8, there's probably more that we don't know about. I refuse to believe that there are enough pet Cougars in multiple states (and Canada) to substantiate the number of sightings and other evidence we are seeing.

I also believe that people on M-S give the MWC too much credit blaming them for what they see as "Cougar-mania". I'll bet most of the Michigan folks that have reported sightings have never even heard of the MWC and are probably unaware of the controversy on the Cougar topic that we see so much of on this site.

And by the way guys, the smart remarks, the kitty-cat jokes and pictures are getting old. You're not as humorous as you would like to imagine. (although the one with the kitten being held at pistol point made me chuckle-just a little though).

[wyle_e_coyote]

I think the smart remarks and Kitty-cat jokes are quite funny and just what this subject needs.... some humor. Lets not get too offended by some jokes...ok, 2 cops walk into a bar....JUST KIDDING Woodsrat ;) .

I read all the cougar post waiting to hear of a capture or some real find. I hope someday they do show up!!
I'm really interested in what is going on in Menomonee Co....NOT Farmington Hills!
IF....IF there is a breeding population of WILD cougars in Michigan, they will be found in the E. U.P., not just east of Detroit!

[gman12]

Of all of the members of this board and other boards from Mich. seems to me someone should know of someone that has a pet, maybe it's like woodsrat said a "secret society" What's the old saying? If owning cougars is a crime, only criminals will have cougars!

[plugger]

I think the cougars should be protected in metropoliton areas, they were there first right?

[Nimrod1]

8-10 years ago I met a guy who had a couger and a grizzly bear as "pets". He lived near Borculo, MI. The pens and animals were visable from the road. Must have been everything was on the up and up, because there have been several articals in the local papers about this guy and his pets over the years. I will take a ride this weekend and see if there is any sign of the pets around. Maybe there will be a sighting of a couger traveling with a griz!:yikes:

[SmallGameStalker]

My other point is, apparently owning an illegal Cougar is the best kept criminal act known to mankind. Any other type of crime and the dummy's can't keep their mouth shut and neither can their friends or relatives. About three years ago, a woman in this neck of the woods owned a single, pet Bobcat. At least a dozen different people notified the police regarding the ownership of this cat. Why doesn't that happen with all of these hundreds of alleged Cougar owners? Especially when the cat escapes or is let go? How do these Cougar owners get the people in their life to swear to secrecy?



I'd expect a threat to sic the illegal cougar on the person ratting them out might work pretty well. :lol:

However, in all seriousness, I personally chalk this up as the hysteria/mania of the moment, much like the period in the late 80's when tens or hundreds of people were reporting sightings of the "black panther" around Milford. Didn't that one turn out to be a feral house cat as well?

regards,