Normally I'd not say such being a borderline cat fanatic, but this goes beyond the pale. Big kitty has already eaten one small cat as an appetizer, and it looks like the puma is checking our Jr. for the main course. The pot smokers who put the puma they hit in the back of their jeep was funny, this is not.
The lion must die - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Wayne Laugesen (
letters@boulderweekly.com)
It's my desire to point the crosshairs smack between the mountain lion's eyes and squeeze the trigger. Then I'll call 911, report the animal dead, and be on my way.
"If you do that, you'll be ticketed," said Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
Like I care. Should my plan succeed, a young family near Evergreen will be freed from the terror of a lion that's stalking them.
"This lion wants to kill my son," an emotional Carrie Warner told me. "If it doesn't kill him, it will eventually kill someone else. It's just a matter of time."
The Warners have become poster prey in a bizarre spree of mountain lion attacks and sightings that have even urban residents of Louisville avoiding parks and bike paths. For the past month, a lion has been hanging around the Warner home and at one point narrowly missed taking a bite out of Shaffer Warner's leg.
Carrie and Shaffer have a 6-year-old son, Schylure, who can no longer play outside. At night, the lion stares in the boy's bedroom window. Baskfield said the lion is probably staring at Schylure's cat, not the boy, and suspects the family is exaggerating.
"Mountain lions are curious just like other felines," Baskfield said. "It's going to sit and watch the cat in the window, especially if it's viewing cats and humans as a food source now."
Wow, that's comforting. The man who would ticket me for bagging a predacious lion says the creature is probably more interested in eating a cat than a boy, but in the same sentence admits that lions view humans as food.
The lion already ate one of the Warner's two cats, and when the second one's gone the next smallest snack will be Schylure. The lion already killed three deer that hung around the Warner home, and the Division of Wildlife hauled the maimed carcasses away.
One evening, when Carrie and Shaffer were outside smoking, they heard the lion and decided to head inside. The lion chased them, and Carrie slammed the door on its head. She opened the door slightly, slammed the door on its head again, and the lion backed away.
"After that, it climbed inside my husband's boat and walked all over our minivan," Carrie said. "We hardly ever leave the house. When we do have to go somewhere, my husband goes out with a pellet gun and checks the area. Then we surround Schylure and rush him to the van like the secret service protecting the president. He has no freedom. He is cloistered in our little 850-square-foot rental home 24-7."
Carrie says the family has purchased an industrial air horn—the type used in a shipyard—but it does nothing to scare the lion away. The first few weeks of the stalking, Carrie said publicly that she didn't want the lion killed.
"My husband's a long-haired hippie freak who probably belongs in Boulder," Carrie says. "We're artists. I'm one of these people who used to line up and yell at women who wore fur. We're the last people on earth who would want to hurt a lion, but this lion's out to kill someone."
Carrie says all but the first call to 911 have proven fruitless, and officers are never sent to the home. She said the Division of Wildlife set traps for a few days and sent a man out with rubber bullets who yawned for two hours and then went home. Carrie says her son is in so much danger that she wouldn't blame Social Services for removing him until the lion is dead.
"When we call 911 or Fish and Wildlife, I get belittled and ignored," Carrie said. "They tell me they'll send someone out tomorrow, which they never do."
Baskfield says that's not true. Though Carrie says the state stationed an officer with rubber bullets for a few hours one night, Baskfield said rubber bullet man has waited for the lion on three occasions.
Regardless, it's clear that one can't rely on 911 or a state agency for anything but carcass removal when a predator threatens life and limb. Get a gun; kill the predator. You're well within your rights to do so, even if some zealot tickets you. In court, you're likely to prevail, and if not you'll know you made the life-giving choice.
The state has responded to this stalking with rubber bullets, ineffective live traps and complete disregard for a legitimate threat to human life. Baskfield, in his conversation with me, was clear that his agency cares more about lions than it does about the Warners. So it's no longer up to the state or the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department. The lion must die.
Respond:
letters@boulderweekly.comSource:
http://www.boulderweekly.com/waynesword.html 
