I am not a hunter, if using a gun makes the hunter, and not a camera. I actually take both, but shoot with the camera. The gun is for a bad situation, and is usually only needed when you don't have one. But I often wonder if there is more out there to be aware of. There is a huge exotic pet trade, and has been for some time. I have a friend who has over 80 exotic cats, and most are top predators. One of his leopards even attacked me once, and would have seriously injured or killed me if it wanted.

With all the owners and breeders out there now, logic would say many have escaped over the years, and some have even been publicized......but how many have not? Oh yeah.......let me immediately report that my pet king cobra & bengal tiger 'got out'. The panthers reported in the UK and Austrailia are examples, but what about here, and to what extent? Snakes too. I hope some of you hunters respond to this.

I try not to think about all this stuff when I'm in the woods with my beagles at night!!!! Spoil all your fun,, know what I meen??? Get out in the woods at night around an old abandoned house lot and you've got to keep a WELL IN MIND,, don't want to fall in one of those things!!! It has happened toooo... Lots of things can hurt us out there, just got to stay on top of things and be ready for anything!!!

Crew Chief

Martha Stewart is out of jail and free to roam...

That does it!

I'm never going to visit Texas or Florida.

To many feral creepy crawlers out there.

None of that here. ADFG strictly enforces exotic pets here. If it can survive the climate, it's taboo.

The chances of you encountering an escaped exotic pet are minute in comparison to the chances of you being killed on the road. just my opinion.

I saw a female African lion stalking some wild turkeys. This was in Oklahoma. It's interesting to hear of the big black cats in Austrailia, because the old timers in Oklahoma spoke of seeing black panthers when I was a kid.

You must be kidding A lion in Oklahoma?????? no way -- your kidding right??

I dont think so, I read a few cases where you would be surprise to or even have one of these animals cross your path.It very possible. A lot of people get these exotic pet, as babies, then as all babies do. They become BIG babies, and cant be carefored, and it illigal to have then so they are set lose in the wild. Happens alot with snakes . I cant tell you how many times call are made for yellow or green anacondas or mambas cobras. You name it, people want one, there so nice a sweat . I have read a few reports of black panthers and leaporeds in norther cal and northern tex , ariz So It does not surprise me. Thats Just another reason to carry when you going into the woods.

If you get a chance lookn up pets for sale, type site, exotic you will be surprised. A few months ago, a yellow anaoconda was for sale. it the smaller of the two but get big. African rock PYTH was also on this ame site, and I know they cant be legit. They are very agressive, and big.. I am sorry, to answer you question Yes believe it...

Y'all keep bringing this stuff up and we won't ever get Melissa out in the woods, day or night

No,, No,, Im ok

Cool....I'm glad your Ok with everything.....you wouldn't be opposed to wearing a couple of pork chops around your neck and walking through a swamp at sundown yelling, "Here Chicky! Chicky!" then. ......................What?

Skeered??

LMAO - if I get scared I will just crawl under a log -- and lay there till someone ( or our furry friend ) finds me --

[QUOTE]
Wow, she even makes cross thread jokes! I like this girl.

Remember to yell for help!!

Well -- according to someone else - thats like giving your GPS coordinates to our Furry friend -- but if you think its ok mike I will

I don't know if it's O.K. or not but damnit.....someone has to be the guinea pig!!

In Oregon, we've got feral llamas (confirmed by Dept. F&W). They keep their distance from people.

I've heard of emu herds/flocks/whatever, but nothings been confirmed. They can be aggresive and kick with that big claw on their foot.

In all seriousness, i wouldnt tromp thru an area at night, that i didnt scout out during the day (find the old wells and foundations of homesteads).

Rattlesnakes and two leggety pot growers are what fear me the most-est. But if you've scouted the area throughly in daylight, you can spot the boobytraps easy enough.

Mellissa, come with me darling, you'll be safe I promise, that cooked bacon around your neck will protect you from vampires and rattlesnakes

Really, you have NOTHING to fear from our big two legged friends, except for some screams and rock throwing, ... maybe a shove into the mud .. but its all in fun, enjoy it !!!! :rotflmao:

They will NOT hurt you, without being provoked first (being shot at).

Im not sure if I should be more afraid of:

1. Bugs
2. Snakes
3. Sasquatch

or

ROB and Mike -- LMAO... yeah I aint falling for that - lol.

Guinea Pig who me??

Show me how its done first

SURE HON !!!! I'll show ya how its done .... but then you get to walk outta camp with the bacon and mac-n-cheeze around your neck ... into the dark ... amongst the sassi ... and report back .. and dont squeel like a lil girl , cause that gives me a headache .....

OK - I will do it - but I aint wearing no stinky food around my neck -- LMAO..

Well ..... hmmmph ... youll never see one up close then


:poke:

Where was it in Arkansas a few years ago where someone shot at least one adult male African lion?
I read that his kids came in from playing in the woods and were in a panic, and their dad didn't really believe them. But he went out and shot one, and maybe another. Maybe I have the story messed up but it went something like that. :willies:

Here in my small neck of the woods we are lucky enough to have a vet who has done everything. He was chief vet at the San Diego Zoo for a while, Caught the first King Cobra to be on display here in the US and even worked for Bill Haast, one of the nuttiest guys around when it comes to snakes. So he has done it all...

A couple of years back he gets a call from the local sheriff asking if he can tranquilize a big cat. He says sure how big... The cops say that they are going to investigate this guy growing pot and that they have heard that he has a cougar chained inside the pot field.

Well when thye gets there the pot farmer has this fence built around his pot field but they don't see any cougar. They enter the fence to find a 400lb african lion charging at them... So there is no telling what people have let loose out there.

But in my opinion if BF and a grizzly bear were having it out in the back yard I would be more inclined to go break it up than have to remove a snake from my house. I have no use what so ever for snakes...

I would assume that such a creature is fair game?

If one is strolling through the American woods and comes across, say, an African lion, or a Siberian tiger, even if the beasts aren't being aggressive, may that person legally commence fire?

The way I interpret Alaska law, that appears to be the case here.

What a neat bonus!

A possible safari in our own back yard, without all the muss and fuss of TSA, crappy airline seats, African political risk, African snakes, and no guide fees!


Can you folks steer those unwanted beasties up our way?

We'll take care of them for you.

Snakes are nasty creatures -- but a bigfoot fighting with a lion -- wow. I would just probably get in my car quietly - and leave the property, lmao.

I was able to catch a pic of this viscious creature who appeared in camp at the end of a 3 day hunt. We we all so scared that none of us have gone into the woods for over 3 years now..........

Virginia Game Laws only cover "resident" species so if you see a lion, or an elephant, or Bigfoot for that matter strolling through the woods there are no legal ramifications to shooting it. However, last year Virginia passed a law declaring the killing of a family pet a felony so you better hope no one can claim ole Simba or Dumbo or Patty as pets.

ROTFLMAO
The only thing scarier than a lion is pee wee herman. That's the second time you've made me laugh today sasquatcher.

It was around the Searcy area. A guy up there has, or had (?), several large cats. One showed up loose. He claims somone "dumped" an unwanted lion off at his place. Who knows.

Apparently there is a major problem with people trying to get rid of unwanted exotics, especially of the top predator variety, when they become to big, expensive, dangerous, or otherwise too incovenient to keep.

Lack of long term consideration of the consequences of one's actions seems to be a big problem in this country.

Yall are gonna laugh, but I have seen a panther in my woods and I don't mean the Florida variety but the long big African panther and I saw it more than once. It crossed in front of my car around dusk one evening and I got a really good look. It took up residence in the woods beside my house because at night about dark-thirty I'd hear it vocalize (at least I think that was the panther vocalizing, it didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before screaming mournfully and at times sounding like a woman screaming). Talk about the hair on the back of your neck standing up. I don't know if it was exotic or what, but since the dawn of time our football team has been called the Ashdown Panthers. I'm not the only one who has seen them over the years. I don't know how they got here, but even the game and fish people agreed that they had killed that particular panther (unless there were more than that one) because a neighbor had complained it was stalking their children.

I've also seen (go ahead and laugh) a freakin snake longer than our bass boat and a good foot wide in girth and that's just the part that was porpoising in the water there was more of it underneath the water so I don't know how big that thing was but it scared the hell outta me and my husband and all of the resident fish that were biting just before that thing came along. We talked to the bird and turtle cops and they said they had caught two anacondas in this area. We told them they weren't done yet. The winters here are so mild that exotics can and do survive apparently. I'd be willing to bet a lot of states are able to sustain exotics. The Smoky Crabtree skeletal remains are said to be those of a large cat. I have a friend who keeps circus animals in the off season and she has at one time had a bear (don't know the variety) a couple of cougars, African lions, and a Bengal tiger which she keeps as her own pet along with a cougar. The tiger she had roaming around on its own without containment until the cattle ranchers in the area threw a hissy fit and she had to contain the tiger. She brought that thing to my house when it was a cub and it scared the crap out of my shih-tzu and tore holes with its claws in my bar stool bigger than width of my hand. She tried to get me to take a tiger cub and I said uhh "No thanks, your tiger cub is giving my shih-tzu a nervous breakdown running along behind him swatting at him with those big paws."

Just lately there's been a big cat, probably a cougar in the area killing dogs. A track was measured at 5 inches across.

Yep, Melissa, there are lots of interesting critters out there in them thar forests and in your neighbor's back yards and aquariums. I still think the most dangerous are them fire ants, chiggers, and skeeters though... oh..and that Pee Wee Herman fellar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4160560.stm

If a group of US researchers have their way, lions, cheetahs, elephants and camels could soon roam parts of North America, Nature magazine reports.
The plan, which is called Pleistocene re-wilding, is intended to be a proactive approach to conservation.

The initiative would help endangered African animals while creating jobs, the Cornell University scientists say.

Evidence also suggests, they claim, that "megafauna" can help maintain ecosystems and boost biodiversity.

"If we only have 10 minutes to present this idea, people think we're nuts," said Harry Greene, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University, US.

"But if people hear the one-hour version, they realise they haven't thought about this as much as we have. Right now we are investing all our megafauna hopes on one continent - Africa."

Wild America

During the Pleistocene era - between 1.8 million to about 10,000 years ago - North America was home to a myriad of mega fauna.

Gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators

Josh Donlan, Cornell University
Once, American cheetah (Acinonyx trumani) prowled the plains hunting pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) - an antelope-like animal found throughout the deserts of the American Southwest - and Camelops, an extinct camelid, browsed on arid land.

But man's arrival on the continent - about 13,000 years ago, according to one prevalent theory - pushed many of these impressive creatures to extinction.

Their disappearance left glaring gaps in the complex web of interactions, upon which a healthy ecosystem depends. The pronghorn, for example, has lost its natural predator and only its startling speed - of up to about 60mph - hints at its now forgotten foe.

By introducing living counterparts to the extinct animals, the researchers say, these voids could be filled. So, by introducing free-ranging African cheetahs to the Southwest, strong interactions with pronghorns could be restored, while providing cheetahs with a new habitat.

Public acceptance

Other living species that could "stand in" for Pleistocene-era animals in North America include feral horses (Equus caballus), wild asses (E. asinus), Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus), Asian (Elephas maximus) and African (Loxodonta africana) elephants and lions (Panthera leo).

"Obviously, gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators," said lead author Josh Donlan, of Cornell University. "There are going to have to be some major attitude shifts. That includes realising predation is a natural role, and that people are going to have to take precautions."

However Americans might do more than put up with their new compatriots - they might actually welcome them.

According to Dr Donlan and his colleagues, the re-wilding plan would offer ecotourism and land-management jobs to help the struggling economies of the Great Plains and Southwest.

Dr Donlan said that large tracts of private land are probably the most promising place to start, with each step carefully guided by the fossil record and the involvement of experts and research.

"We are not advocating backing up a van and letting elephants and cheetah out into the landscape," he said. "All of this would be science driven."

Hey Melissa, you are still thinking about that 'screaming log'.....you go girl.

I beleive it was last year when they were having live coverage of the tiger hunt in California, after one escaped. Seems like it was out there a while too, anyone remember this? I do have quite a bit of experience with big cats (my friends big cat sanctuary), and they are unpredictable and dangerous. At six months, most can already do you some harm. Their 'games' are rough, and if any blood starts to trickle, they shift into another gear. The main caretaker, with many years of experience, got her lower arm completely de-fleshed in an instant by a 4 year old male tiger......he was a new arrival, and didn't like women.

Hunster, been looking for more input on this from you on this.....where u be?

There is no telling how many exotic animals may have been released into the environment and where. When the exotic livestock market was hot, ostrich, lama, emus, and who knows what. Then the bottom fell out of the market and the expense of carrying for the animals continued to mount many breeders selected to released the animals to fend for themselves. I’ve seen an ostrich and pot bellied pigs in the WMA in Georgia. I’ve heard of people seeing lamas in the wild also, but never seen one myself.

I’ve wondered how many strange vocals we question may be from an exotic animal released into the wild by someone. Birds, mammal’s, and reptiles who know’s what maybe out there.

It does not matter where you are in down town New York or in a swamp with pork chop tied around your neck it pays to be aware of your surroundings. Old boy scout motto “Always Be Prepared�.

I be here.....

dreaming of the opportunity to shoot somebody's "pet" Siberian tiger coming in to a fawn deer bleat calling session.

The most exotic escaped animal around my neck of the woods would be this frightening creature...


Say hello to Floyd the Flamingo. Escaped from a local aviary around 1990 to the Great Salt Lake. Returns every winter to feed on brine shrimp.

If you hang around in the woods here in South Florida for long you will see something that does not belong. Go a little more South towards Miami and your chances get higher and higher. But even around here seeing things like Big lizards of different kinds and snakes is about a every day thing some places. Every now and then something big will come out some place and make the news around here. Just last year a little South of here a Tiger got out and was running around. The cops ended up shooting and killing it.

Reminds me of the tiger running around Los Angeles a while back.

I worry that someones little girl will be playing on her swing set in a rural backyard somewhere and one of these big cats comes along. Does anyone remember several years ago (Calif.?) when a dad had his little 2-3 year old girl stand at the end of the drive way to wait for mommy who was due to be home at any minute. The poor guy just thought it would be cute for the mommy to see her little girl waiting when she got home. While dad watched out the window from inside the house a coyote walked up to the little girl, looked at her for just a moment and then snatched her by the neck, breaking her neck, and began to try to drag the girl off. The people in the neighborhood had been feeding these coyotes in their backyards and the coyotes had lost their fear of people. I'm sure one of these big cats has no fear of people either.

Not kidding at all. I worked for years for a sanctuary in Oklahoma that did exotic pet "rejects", and at last count they had 89 large cats (including lions, tigers, cougars, and yes even leopards... they have 4), about 10 bears, primates, bobcats, incredible birds, a 17 foot burmese python plus several smaller ones, and even a rattler.

Ferrets, assorted reptiles, emus and ostriches, skunks, raccoons, and wolves. You name it, they got it.

I have watched people load up their 400 lb bengal tigers onto our trucks ON LEASHES. I have seen large cats with teeth removed and claws cut out (leaving them crippled). I even helped load up a 900 lb black bear in Sulphur, within a mile of where I played with my kids, from a cage enclosed with chicken wire (CHICKEN WIRE!!!) She was a "beloved pet" and she loved donuts. Her owner would have been charged with animal cruelty had he not volunteered to give her up when he found out he had terminal cancer. The bear died about 8 months later of a massive coronary because she was SO fat.

I saw a black leopard, so starved that he ate his mate when his owner moved out of state and left him locked in a cage out in the woods.. he had almost gotten the side of the cage chewed thru and would have gotten out if he wasnt so weak with hunger.

Then there is Mufasa, a young African lion, who came in with 72 pellets in his hide. His owner used him for target practice....

... and a baby black leopard with virtually every bone broken because she suffered from a calcium deficiency. Her owner weaned her at 3 weeks and fed her raw chicken (large cats REQUIRE red meat and red meat only).

I have seen horrors that you would not believe, because people are SO ignorant!

stupid humans

By the way, that's Lacara, the baby black leopard. Today?? She would rip your head off in a heartbeat. She is about 2 now.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the three siberian brown bears we found in a TRAILER in a residential neighborhood just south of here. Siberina brown bears.. those are GRIZZLIES!

The latch on the trailer?? A simple throw bolt. Any kid in the area curious enough to open that trailer would have been VERY surprised when they swung that door open.

The guy who had them went to prison....

I can see how someone could fall in love with that little, black cat.

Look at those eyes!

But even this average Joe knows that it's going to grow up into a BIG kitty.

Top predators just don't belong in peoples homes. It just doesn't work.

I read in an article that some biologist put out that coyotes are the most unflappable predators around. Once a coyote has selected it prey no matter what happens it is locked on. The article mentioned that some kids were out playing in an enclosed area when the chaperone noticed a coyote staring the kids down. The coyote was so intent on its prey that someone ended up hitting it over the head and it still didn't want to leave. It was trapped a couple of days later in the same spot because it had returned each day at the exact same time. I will find the article so I can tell you guys where to look. But that scared the crap out of me...

I think this is a very valid question. There can be and are many exotics out in the field. THere are many ranches in Texas that breed and have African wildlife roaming the place. I am sure that many of these animals have breeched fences and other barriers.

I don't really think about it in the woods because, I probably won't come acroos anything but, if I do, hopefully it wil be a grazing animal!

GA DNR COYOTE FACT SHEET


STATEMENT FROM ABOVE LINK.

DISEASE
A coyote displaying abnormal behavior and appearing fearless of humans is uncharacteristic and may mean the animal is injured or has fallen victim to a disease, such as rabies, parvovirus or distemper. In this case, it is in the coyote's and human's best interest to euthanize the animal to prevent any further spread of the disease and relieve the suffering of the infected animal.

I've had them follow the tractor and mower during the day time looking for rats and rabits I run over while mowing.

:surrender:

Sounds like OKBF knows what I am taking about. It was my buddies 4 year old black leopard that attacked me, and I had known the animal since it was a cute little kittie like the picture. From the sanctuary that I am involved with, most of the big cats that we have saved have come from drug dealers and worse. These type of people wouldn't think twice about letting something go either to save their own rear end.

That's probably true to some extent, but I can certainly vouch for the fact that, if you take a shot at a coyote that's coming in to a call (even at a run) and miss, you'd be surprised how quickly it can disappear.

I've had them talking their talk to my beagles at night Huntster,, it ain't cool!!! I've never had one come in on em yet but have several friends who have had attacks on their hounds!!! We talk to the hounds alot so the yotes know people are around, maybe it helps, don't know for sure.. I always have my hand on my side arm when we call the hounds back to us at night, too many eyes shining at ya and its time too launch lead!!!!

Crew Chief