Last week, I went into the field with Cougar Hunter and two other men—Rookie, who’s new to wildlife biology, and THE HOUNDSMAN, who is the greatest houndsman with the greatest hounds—to catch cougars. With no snow—and hence no snowshoes, no snowmobiles, and a snowball’s chance in hell of catching a cat—I thought for sure I wasn’t going to have a story to share.
But then Cougar Hunter spotted a cat track in the frost and THE HOUNDSMAN’s dogs were on the move. Their chances of finding the cat were slim. Tracking a cat with no snow on the ground is tough.
But these dogs proved tougher.
After a couple hours of searching, losing the trail and backtracking, they bayed their “We’ve treed a cougar” bay.
We raced toward the dogs, and when we got them in sight, we realized they had not treed a cougar. They’d cornered it in a culvert. Alas, a cougar in a culvert is not a good thing. So Cougar Hunter decided to chase her out and see if the dogs could tree her. But the cat didn’t run up a tree. It ran into another culvert.
So what did we do?
Duh, we peeked inside.
Okay, not too bright. Even less bright? To position the cat so Cougar Hunter could dart it, Rookie and I stood on one end of the culvert, hoping she’d back away from us toward Cougar Hunter and THE HOUNDSMAN who stood on the other side. Instead, she came at us. Rookie and I screamed like little girls and got out of the way fast.
“What are you doing?” yelled THE HOUNDSMAN.
“She came at us!” we yelled.
"Go back and make sure she doesn’t run out of the culvert!” ordered THE HOUNDSMAN.
Feeling sufficiently reprimanded for not being tough enough, I said, “Uh…okay.” Then Rookie and I tiptoed back to the opening and peeked inside, hoping we wouldn’t get our faces ripped off.
When we looked into the culvert, the cat turned around to face Cougar Hunter and THE HOUNDSMAN.
Then she charged them and…
…they screamed and got the hell out of her way.
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