Residents of suburban Washington, D.C. were startled to find a bear in the neighborhood recently, but bears in the trash can are getting passé these days and it's gotta be a pretty slow news day for Yogi looking for pic-a-nic baskets in the 'burbs* to draw much attention outside of the tamest east coast enclaves.
Things were a lot more Mutual of Omaha in southern Indiana last Friday when a guy took a shot at what he supposed to be a bobcat preying on his girlfriend's cats and killed a leopard instead.
Yes, a leopard. Panthera pardus.
I guarantee that as this news story broke, gun owners across southern Hoosierland cast smug glances at their spouses, feeling completely justified in that purchase of a .375 H&H bolt gun. You know, the one they rationalized that they were buying just in case a leopard ever got loose or something.
The news article never answers the important question, though: What gun for leopard?
*Actually, at under a hundred pounds, this was more Boo Boo than Yogi...
Damn. And I thought the cougar I saw down the road from my grandmother's house here in Missouri was freaky. At least cougars are native tot he continent ;p
ReplyDeletei had a chance recently to buy a .375 H&H from a buddy. it had been his Dad's and i had asked in times past if they had had a water buffalo problem in their neighborhood when he was growing up. reloading dies, brass and everything included. upon sober reflection, i didn't think i could afford 1/4 pound of powder and a bullet the size of my thumb for each case, so i had to let that one slide. still, it would have made a wonderful lower alabama leopard gun.
ReplyDeletesecret code: remove optedjun. yes, immediately!
Farmer Frank's advice on caliber for cats can be found here.
ReplyDeleteWGFL? Apparently the one that hoosierboy used...
ReplyDeleteIs Huck OK?
ReplyDeleteGerry
One of my cow-orkers wife had a large-ish bear stroll past her in their garden the other morning. Said about 20 ft away. She stood stock still and it ignored her and kept on going. They often have bears outside their house and up on their deck here near Asheville. Just a regular old NC black bear, but still.
ReplyDeleteMy buddy killed his leopard with a 300 Norma magnum. Since you asked...
ReplyDeleteBy the by, this is going to make huge waves in the cryptozoology community. It makes me wonder if there really is something to all the alien big cat stories like the beast of exmoor.
Although I wouldn't expect a captive raised cat to be particularly stealthy with no good conditioned in reason to avoid them. This leopard behaved exactly as I would anticipate - it got itself killed by humans because it had no reason to think it needed to hide from them.
I'm waiting for the local animal rights group to complain that it could have been taken alive if only the homeowner had known all the words to "Can't Bring You Anything But Love, Baby."
ReplyDeleteAnd in California, where the native cats have been protected since about 1995, maulings have been on the rise. Seems their natural reclusiveness and fear of humans was caused primarily by hunting pressure.
ReplyDeleteLive trap! If you keep them well fed they hardly ever bite. Besides you can rent it out to the city government zoning commission to guard the file cabinet with the impending eminent domain notices in it. The one in the basement.
ReplyDeleteLeopards hate being cooped up in disused bathrooms.
DeleteThe black bear was looking for a hot date with the red panda that escaped from the National Zoo the day before.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the panda was recaptured before they could rendezvous.
Hmm. How often do you get a chance to punch your Big 5 ticket without 20k worth of airfare, porters and license fees?
ReplyDeleteShoot, Skin & Shut Up, Bwana! And tell the memsahib she has too many cats!
There used to be a place on SR 22 west of Kokomo that had 6 or 8 tigers and lion. You could stop and look for free, and they had a donation box. Their cages looked pretty tight, but it still gave me pause. What if one or more of those did get loose? There were plenty of cattle, sheep, and goats around to keep them busy, I guess.
ReplyDeleteHah! I'm ready for the rhino's charge with my New CZ 550 African in .416 Rigby! I've even got some Hornady DGX loads for it. I'd better stock up on the solids in case of elephant.
ReplyDelete"What gun for leopard?"
ReplyDeleteThey are cats, though medium-ish sized cats, so I would think the H&H Magnum would be too much gun ..... maybe another magnum? Say.... a .44 mehbee? In a short levergun carbine? With light for caliber hollow points?
I don't have one of those ..... better put it on the list ....and bullets and dies...... just in case of Leopard!
-jimbob86
I don't know what caliber, but for some reason it would seem inappropriate to use anything but a Leupold scope...
ReplyDeleteSuppressed 10/22 Ruger would have come out around here....
ReplyDeleteI can't read your capchas any more than Travon's girlfriend can read cursive.
Robert Langham,
ReplyDelete"I can't read your capchas any more than Travon's girlfriend can read cursive."
I'm really sorry, but when spammers figured out a way to evade Blogger's detection algorithms, I quickly lost the enthusiasm for having to manually delete 100-300 spam comments a day. :(
Aw, c'mon, Tam. WGFL? I'm thinking .22LR. I mean, really, it's a big pussycat. At least make it more or less a fair fight. .416 Rigby would just turn kitty to pudding.
ReplyDeleteThe leopard was about 9 months old. Someone adopted a cute little leopard kitten, but kittens soon turn into cats, and they discovered that keeping control of an adolescent leopard was beyond their capabilities.
ReplyDeleteRobert, I'm unfamiliar with "cow-orkers". Are they found in Mordor, or possibly near Orthanc?
ReplyDelete