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California authorities shot and killed a mountain lion that attacked two female mountain bikers Thursday afternoon in the Foothill Ranch region of Orange County, California, leaving one woman in critical condition and another badly shaken.

The body of another apparent attack victim was discovered nearby.

The bikers were attacked while riding trails in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. One of the women, Debbie Nichols, described to reporters at the scene how the mountain lion dragged her companion 100 yards into the brush while she held on to her legs and screamed for help.

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For more info :: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/01/09/mountain.lion/index.html

:eek:

Now not only is this a sad case of events but it is news to me in two ways as i wasn't aware of any kind of Mountain Lion population in California, apparently they number between 5000-6000.

How did they get there and is the term Lion that accurate or are they more like a Lynx or a Puma or something like that ?

If you live in California do you see them often?

In Britain we've got loads of Foxes and Badgers to a lesser number and such but wild cats that is a bit more complecated.

There is a rumoured population in the low hundreds of wild cats like Pumas or Panthers but re so stealthly that nobody has ever been up close for decades. They were let loose from stately homes many years ago and now they are just there.

So anyone?

Originally posted by Critic
How did they get there and is the term Lion that accurate or are they more like a Lynx or a Puma or something like that ? Cougars, actually.

Yeah, I saw one of the news channels here was pumping up the story as "Lion Attack in California!" as a teaser. Kind of misleading to refer to it as a "lion" in that context.

Thanks to Google, here's the animal that's known as the mountain lion in the western US: http://www.desertusa.com/may96/du_mlion.html

hmm, thanks for the link

I have heard of Cougars.

It just sounded a lot worse on the news over here when they said a "Mountain Lion" had a biker by the head. When they said Lion i first thought of the kind you would see on a Savannah in Africa and that sounded quite horrific. Now i know a bit different.

There are different species of what they call "Mountain Lions" all over the US..

Even on the East we have a large population of Bobcat's and Lynx's just to name a few.

They oten mind their on P's & Q's and stick to the woods and hills but sometimes someone gets bitten. Even though they arent all that big of a cat they can still do alot of damage!

We have Lynx's in Europe, not many in Britain, some in Scotland i think.

They are like a 1.5 to2 times the size of your average tabby domestic cat, well the ones that i saw in Wildlife parks were if i remember correctly.

Foxes are the more common wild animal here in Britain really but wild is a bit of an inaccurate term now as they're moving into the cities and urban areas more and more now.

Critic - Do you work for a news company?

Originally posted by Trifolic
Critic - Do you work for a news company?

Nope, did some journalism work experience in the mid 90's but that was just a press office.

That is as close as it gets, why do you ask?

Originally posted by Critic
Nope, did some journalism work experience in the mid 90's but that was just a press office.

That is as close as it gets, why do you ask?

You seem to be on top of the latest and greatest news :) Your last like 5 topics you started in the lounge have been news that I enjoy reading about but never hear about on TV or my local papers, Keep up the good work :gthumb:

Every one of them, on the other hand, I'd already read about just because as I go about my workday I'm regularly opening browser windows with a news source (myway.com) as my home page.

So sometimes I've been wondering "What is it that Critic guy? He doesn't realize that anyone interested in the news of the day looks for it at cnn.com, not WHT?" But now I see that there are people who actually are relying on his posts to keep them up-to-date. :)

Trifolic

Some of it just comes from your standard hourly news bulletin on the radio and a bit of TV.

However i get quite a bit from a show called UpAllNight on the BBC Rdio 5, i have a bit of an off sleep pattern. It is on between 0100 and 0500, as most of Britain is asleep they go where people are awake throughout the night each day, The Americas, Asia, Oceania. Some great nuggets of info there and if i can't get some secondary sources it doesn't make it to the board.

Other than that i just keep a tab on News websites, BBC, CNN, Sky, Reuters, Fox now and again.

I suppose i could be called a news addict, i like to be in the know and make sure that WHTers who might not know it do also if it looks like something that might not make your more regional or local news.

Thanks for the positive opinion/comments. :)

Originally posted by JayC
So sometimes I've been wondering "What is it that Critic guy? He doesn't realize that anyone interested in the news of the day looks for it at cnn.com, not WHT?" But now I see that there are people who actually are relying on his posts to keep them up-to-date. :)

Well personally, I don't like sifting through all the political BS that CNN.com and other news sites have. I like the Stupid stories, the silly stories, or the WTF was that guy thinking stories.. The mainstream stories change views everyday and is just not worth my time.. If Critic was to stop posting, I would have to start calling him every morning! :)