Obviously a fat, lazy trophy hunter wounded that beautiful, innocent creature just so he could get a chubby.
The shocking thing is that it’s even being discussed.
They never mention the back leg but you can clearly see it. They say it was wounded in a fight but I was wondering if it was hit by a car.
They JUST HAPPENED to be driving along with the cameras rolling when Our Hero spots a Cougar by the side of the road, screeches to an ABS- controlled halt, leaps out of the vehicle and guns down the charging car.
OK.
Now, see... Barry Wensel was calling Elk, and made what was most likely a mistake (perhaps an unavoidable one) by allowing the cat to get so close (before he stood up to holler at it) that it was too committed to the attack to register that the Elk it was stalking had turned into a human. To the cat, it probably looked like a bedded Elk jumping up to escape.
I’m not saying that I know that the Shockey incident was staged to turn the act of Humanely putting down a mortally injured animal into an action-packed sequence that would be sure to get chat rooms buzzing and help drive up the ratings... but I sure would not be, dare I say it, SHOCKED to find out that it was.
But then I lost all respect for him 30 years ago when he completely dismissed the roundball as a suitable bullet for hunting.
Jim Shockey
June 15, 2018 · ...
This will be a long one.
First off, I apologize for not posting more pictures lately on Facebook and Instagram, we have been a little busy with the June 20, 2018 grand opening of our “Hand of Man” museum of Natural History, Cultural Arts and Conservation www.handofman.org The website is now live. Hopefully everyone reading this will make the journey to Vancouver Island for a visit. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Now for the real reason for this post.
I want to thank everyone who has been calling and emailing me to find out if I am ok after the cougar attack. Yes I am fine. It was a very close call, too close actually, but thankfully for my cameraman Taylor Smith and me, it was the cougar that ended up being dinner, not us.
In case you have not heard about the attack, it happened just a few days ago, while I was out hunting black bear in our Vancouver Island outfitting territory. Taylor and I were returning to camp in the mid afternoon, when a cougar crossed the little used logging road in front of us. Here on Vancouver Island, the regulations allow for two cougars to be taken per hunter per year and the season runs nearly year round. Only the summer months are off limits. I always carry two valid cougar tags and this last spring season we have seen more cougars than anytime since the late 1990’s, when we had a similar spate of cougar sightings and several documented attacks on humans.
Taylor and I continued walking towards where the cougar crossed the logging road and as we passed the spot where it crossed, it attacked us from behind. It had obviously crouched down and hid in the thick undergrowth beside the road and waited for us. I whirled and shot from the hip, disabling the big male cougar as it leapt at me. Taylor captured the attack on camera and you are looking at a video screen grab from an instant after I fired.
An examination of the full grown male cougar showed that it was emaciated, starving, which probably was the reason for the attack. There was a single hole through the paw, which could have been a bite from another cougar, or could have been my Nosler bullet passing through the cougar’s paw, shoulder and back hip. When the cougar crossed the road, it did not seem to be limping.
Hunger was likely the motivation for the cougar attacking me. The bigger question is why was this mature male cat starving? That question will have to be left to the biologists to determine officially, but my “feet on the ground” opinion is pretty simple and logical. There are too many wolves and those too many wolves, as they have done in Saskatchewan and many other places, have eaten most of the deer. They run the roads, roads that we humans made, which essentially gives them “uber” wolf predation powers. The effect of too many predators is never pretty. All predators, like this poor cougar, will starve.
It’s the Law of Unintended Consequences. Sadly our human hearts are often in the right place, but reality is reality. All animal populations need to be managed. Wild or domestic.
Sorry but I have to add one more thing, a bit of a soapbox speech that you can feel free to ignore. It’s my “feet on the ground” greater concern. A cougar starving and attacking a human is one thing...but a starving grizzly bear is another matter. Grizzly bear hunting was banned in British Columbia recently, for 100% political reasons against sound scientific wildlife management advice. Biologists have monitored Grizzly bears have proven that a single grizzly bear will kill and eat up to 30 new born calf caribou and moose every spring during the birthing season. Here in British Columbia, the health of the large ungulate population is already of concern, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to predict the future. Grizzlies here in British Columbia, like the wolves here on Vancouver Island, will soon eat themselves out of house and home...and when they have eaten all the baby caribou, moose, elk and deer as they are being born...what (who) do you think they will look upon as dinner next?
Mark these words. Doom and gloom aside and to end on a lighter note, I guess if there is a bright side to this unfortunate event, it’s that even at 60-years of age...cougars are still attracted to me!!
LMAO, James!
Nope, haven't seen the video, but it's not my fault that it isn't (apparently) available to all on YouTube..
But from Shockey's account...
" Taylor and I were returning to camp in the mid afternoon, when a cougar crossed the little used logging road in front of us... "Taylor and I continued walking towards where the cougar crossed the logging road and as we passed the spot where it crossed, it attacked us from behind. It had obviously crouched down and hid in the thick undergrowth beside the road and waited for us. "
Is it common to be able to bag a cougar by following it on foot, without dogs, and carrying only a handgun???
I wouldn't think that'd be a productive technique...
But that's not Jimbo's message - he wants us all to know that Wolves are turning Cougars into man-eaters, and Grizzlies are next. Then when all the deer, Elk, moose and 'bou are gone, the wolves will turn to humans as a primary food source.
Or maybe he's just a guide whose bookings are down because word is out that the wolves have made the hunting harder than it used to be...
Still seems like an unlikely way to hunt down a cougar that you saw crossing a road.
@Adam - I'm not going to go out of my way to lock horns with you because I think you're a good egg, but I can't let this one slide:
"There's a reason more guys shoot recurves than roundballs."
#1 - You have a credible source for that?
#2 - OK, I'll bite. What is it?
'Cuz it's not the accuracy (which is superb) and it's not the on-game performance (which is devastating, yet results in a trivial amount of bloodshot meat). Much more likely it's the severe shortage of quality, affordable roundball rifles and the fact that ML seasons are short and frequently held AFTER a couple months of archery AND THEN firearms seasons...
So... No particular axe to grind, but I've learned to be extremely skeptical of All Things Shockey...
Yeah, my thoughts too, except if wounded was hiding but felt threatened once they came too close... They were in stalking mode along a gravel road and were actually a couple steps past the cat when it pounced from behind... They seen and knew it was there and ready... Had they not known it was there and just been walking down the road, the outcome may have been different...
And the naysayer?
Heading home from a evening dove hunt in the mid nineties , something blurred across the shale road in front of my truck. Looked like it was sliding into the Johnson grass covered bar ditch the last I seen it. I slammed on the brakes and had my 870 beside me and run out in the grass after it. I started down the ditch and it started growling as it come after me clanking it's teeth on the barrel of my gun as I was backing up . I could barely make it out and grabbed it behind the head with one hand jerking it up and grabbing it somewhere mid back. It raised all kinds of hell. Not sure why I did this but not usual for me at the time. I was in my work truck and managed to put it in the large tool Box and take it home . Made a noose on a broom handle to get it out and put in in the kennel at home ,then call a vet out for recommendations . He said put it down . I didn't and it died about a week later. It could walk but it's back end would fall over. Back broke I guess . Morales of the story is it couldn't get away very good so jumped at my when I got too close .
