Wondering Where The Lions Are

Those Bruce Colburn lyrics ran through my head as I entered the barnyard yesterday morning. Emma had been barking but I assumed at the new neigbours going to work. Suddenly I saw 2 animals running up and down the fence. Coyotes trying to get in? I ran back for the shot gun and after an effort to stick a shell in the barrel, I fired a shot over the invaders. Then I realized it was a pair of cougar cubs, one outside trying to get in and one inside trying to get out. How cute they were at about 20 pounds with dark brown spots, until I saw the damage. A ewe dead by the fence with tracks in the snow revealing a cat had been dragging her along the fence trying to get the carcass over he fence. I ran back to call Fish and Wildlife. This time they would believe me with a cougar cub trapped inside my fence. "We'll be right over," said Keith Linderman, the officer who set up a camera here last May to get a photo of my alleged cougar returning. By the time he and another officer arrived, the one cub had managed to climb the fence and escape with his sibling. Finally I realized the kitties' mother had to have been close by.. The officers cut into the ewe, took photos and showed me how a cougar kills. They bite into neck and sometimes crush a skull. They eat into the heart and lungs first, unlike coyotes who eats the leg of lamb first (as do I). We found another dead ewe in the barn. "Lucky," a ewe with one floppy ear post dogs attack a year ago, did not make it. The officers said they could track and kill the cougar if I wished but trapping her with such young cubs would not work. Or I could keep my animals LOCKED in the barn at night. I thought of the cute cubs, thought of my grandkids and elected for the latter choice. The guys drug my dead animals down into the field and returned with a chorus of coyotes in the air. We made out a claim form and it was over.
So glad l did not purchase 8 new eyes with lambs last week! With 6 ewes and Big Daddy the ram left we are assured of a few little lambs running around this summer (IF I keep them shut in every night. At first I could not get one llama, Rowdy, inside the barn and left him outside. One night he sounded the alarm shortly after dark. I stumbled out of bed and fired a shot in the dark. In the morning I found cat tracks showing the came back and would have had llama had Rowdy not made a racket. Now everyone must be in at night, no exceptions. We are under siege and somehow we don't mind it.