Outdoor pastimes of an American hunterRoosevelt, Theodore
General
Outdoor pastimes of an American hunter
Roosevelt, Theodore
Hunting -- United States; Hunting -- West (U.S.)
Hudson alludes to the stories
about the cougar attacking the grizzly bear. Here I am on ground that I
do know. It is true that an occasional old hunter asserts that the
cougar does this, but the old hunter who makes such an assertion also
invariably insists that the cougar is a ferocious and habitual
man-killer, and the two statements rest upon equally slender foundations
of fact. I have never yet heard of a single authentic instance of a
cougar interfering with a full-grown big bear. It will kill bear cubs if
it gets a chance; but then so will the fox and the fisher, not to speak
of the wolf. In 1894, a cougar killed a colt on a brushy river bottom a
dozen miles below my ranch on the Little Missouri. I went down to visit
the carcass and found that it had been taken possession of by a large
grizzly. Both I and the hunter who was with me were very much interested
in what had occurred, and after a careful examination of the tracks we
concluded that the bear had arrived on the second night after the kill.
He had feasted heartily on the remains, while the cougar, whose tracks
were evident here and there at a little distance from the carcass, had
seemingly circled around it, and had certainly not interfered with the
bear, or even ventured to approach him. Now, if a cougar would ever have
meddled with a large bear it would surely have been on such an occasion
as this. If very much pressed by hunger, a large cougar will, if it gets
the chance, kill a wolf; but this is only when other game has failed,
and under all ordinary circumstances neither meddles with the other.
When I was down in Texas, hunting peccaries on the Nueces, I was in a
country where both cougar and jaguar were to be found; but no hunter had
ever heard of either molesting the other, though they were all of the
opinion that when the two met the cougar gave the path to his spotted
brother. Of course, it is never safe to dogmatize about the unknown in
zoology, or to generalize on insufficient evidence; but as regards the
North American cougar there is not a particle of truth of any kind,
sort, or description in the statement that he is the enemy of the larger
carnivores, or the friend of man; and if the South American cougar,
which so strongly resembles its Northern brother in its other habits,
has developed on these two points the extraordinary peculiarities of
which Mr. Hudson speaks, full and adequate proof should be forthcoming;
and this proof is now wholly wanting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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