lion(s) kill 17 sheep in one incident--NV

[Emily]

http://www.mynews4.com/news/local/story ... WbzBA.cspx


Reno, NV (KRNV & MyNews4.com) -- A Smith Valley resident who raises sheep for food is starting from scratch after all 17 of her sheep were killed by mountain lions in one night.

On Friday, August 2, 2013 Woodi Rae Forrester came home to find all 17 of her sheep dead in their pin. Forrester is a single mom who raises sheep for food, she says this is a major set back for her.

Forrester says the mountain lions only ate one of her sheep and bit and suffocated the other 16.

Officials with the USDA Wildlife Services are working to trap the mountain lions that are responsible for killing Forrester's sheep and some other pets in the Smith Valley and Wellington area.

Chris Healy with the Nevada Department of Wildlife says dry conditions and the recent Bison Fire in Douglas County may be causing more mountain lions to move into the Smith Valley and Wellington area.

Wildlife Services told Forrester they believe there are seven mountain lions responsible for the recent attacks, so far they have trapped two of them.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

This is very common with sheep and cougar, many times a lone cat will kill 20 plus sheep in a night eating only one. 7 cats my ass!!!!

[FullCryHounds]

Yea, how the heck do they know there's seven cats that are responsible? More then likely, it's a female with two or three larger kittens that did this. I've seen three cats kill 11 sheep one night and only eat a part of two of them. I think they get in the pen and kill every thing in there because they don't have the intelligence to understand they'll never be able to eat everything they've killed.

[chilcotin hillbilly]

People don't realize that the sheep tend to stand there a close their eyes when terrified by preditors. Most sheep killed by cougars have one bite to the back of the head and neck with little or no damage done to the rest of the body.
It is stories like this that will keep us lion hunting, so the more press the better. 7 lions heck lets make 17!!!

[Mike Leonard]

I agree I doubt the 7 cat theory.

I have been called out numerous times on sheep and goat killers and heard some pretty amazing stories. About a year ago I was working on one in Arizona I knew by the tracks it was a mature tom but this was all in red sand country and he would strike at night and then head out thru some terrible rim and bluff country that would be just about impossible to get hound thru without ropes and climbing gear. I got on him one morning after he had killed 7 sheep and 1 goat in a smal brush boma or corral that the Navajo indians use to corral their animals at night to protect them from coyotes. He jumped in worked them over , ate a very little bit off the goat, and left out. I lost him late in the day when he went up over some towering rims and dark was almost on us. I had to head back to New Mexico the next day so i couldn't go on but got a call that evening that he had struck again nearly 12 miles as the crow flies away killing 13 sheep in another enclosure and eating none of it. I was there before daylight and got a break as he had laid up and the dogs bayed him and we got him killed. He was about 140 pound tom in good health except he had lost the outside toe on one front foot to a trap recently. I don't know if this had anything to do with him becoming a stock killer but there were numerous mule deer in the area he went thru. It almost appeared he just killed the sheep for sport. Another incident happened again on the Navajo Reservation but this time on the New Mexico side where an elderly Navajo woman had to set unarmed and watch a lion kill 28 of her sheep in broad daylight. she said it appeared that the lion would just run into the sheep and the next thing they were flat on the ground dead and then she would hit another one just bam! Bam! Bam! that fast. This lion never took a bite off any of the sheep and after following it'sd trail for about 3/4 of a mile it had killed a yearling mule deer, ate and covered it, and that was it's undoing. As Dean said sometimes you will see a female giving catch lessons on sheep to year subs but then again other times it just appears that they don't care much for live sheep. LOL!

[mulehound]

In the late 80's I recieved a call from a Government hunter by the name of Gary Pica. He said a lion killed 52 head of sheep and he need some help. I headed out and met Gary and surveyed the carnage. There were sheep in piles of four to five everywhere. A large Tom had come through and killed the sheep in one night. He never ate any of them and he never came back. We were three days behind and never caught up to him.
Darrel.