So I'm a Cat Person Now

I generally hate cats. I don't like their smell, their features or their adorable little antics; and their freaky owners usually wig me out too.

 In this one case, however, I am 100% pro-cat. Pro-mountain lion, specifically. To be precise, I have become a die hard fan of the estimated 22 mountain lions that inhabit the state of Nebraska; the ones upon which the State of Nebraska has declared open season. In any conflict between hunter and cougar in Nebraska, I am absolutely and without reservation rooting for the big cat.

I don't have a problem with hunting. I think harvesting one's own meat is actually superior to purchasing corporate raised and slaughtered beef and pork at the supermarket. I also have no problem with killing a threatening animal (key word: threatening). Furthermore, I really don't have an issue with a farmer shooting a predator endangering his livestock.

Here's the thing, though. According to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission there is not one documented case of a mountain lion attack on a human in Nebraska. Not one. Game and Parks has also been unable to definitively attribute any livestock deaths to mountain lions. I don't doubt that there have been farm animals killed by one of the big cats at some point since 1867, but the number is so few as to be statistically nonexistent, particularly since their virtual extermination in the state in the 1890s. Nobody is being attacked, and the current population of less then 30 cats is not a viable threat to people or livestock. In addition, Nebraska law already allowed for killing mountain lions that threaten people or attack or attempt to attack livestock. Given that we live in a Gun Lust red state, that allowance would be stretched as far as necessary for anyone who saw a cougar and, a la South Park, yelled, "It's comin' right at us, Ned!"

 Of course, safety, conservation and sense don't matter one bit to the dumb rednecks in this state, who would like nothing better than to power their ATVs with spotted owls, sandhill cranes and bald eagles. They just gots ta git thar shoot on when they're not gettin' liquored up watching other dumb rednecks turn left for three hours, or beating their wives when the Huskers lose (seriously, domestic violence rises measurably after a Husker loss). So who cares if mountain lions aren't a threat? Who cares if there's only 22 of them? Who cares if there's no use in shooting them? By Jesus Holy Christ, it's our goldurned right to shoot anything that moves, and we're gettin right tired of only pluggin' away at them deer and pheasant.

Our dumb, redneck, tobaccy-chawin' lawmakers, of course, agreed with their dumb, redneck, tobaccy-chawin' constituents, and they've opened two hunting seasons on a population of approximately 22 mountain lions. Sometimes it's embarrassing to be a Nebraskan.

So: I'm rooting for the underdog, or the under-cat in this case. If some dumb hick goof in his uber-cool wraparounds takes his gun and goes hunting for, to quote the World Herald, "... elusive and reclusive mountain lions ... ," I hope he finds them, and I hope the big cat wins. I hope the dumb redneck bastard gets caught looking the wrong way and gets his stupid redneck ass mauled.

Go Cats!

much peace, sort of,

tjb