U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Mountain lion populations are on the increase and pose significant threats to unarmed humans. Mountain lions were involved in a flurry of interaction with humans in the last two weeks of 2019.
On 26 December 2019, Gary Gorney was hunting pheasants with his two dogs, in the Custer Mine hunting area near Minot, North Dakota. His dogs alerted him to something ahead. Instead of a pheasant, a large female mountain lion charged him out of the grass. He shot and killed the lion with his 9mm pistol.
Gorney said he was talking on his cell phone when his German shorthair, Milly, went on point. He put the cell phone in his pocket with the expectation that a rooster pheasant was about to take flight. Instead, a large female mountain lion emerged from the tall grass and came right at him.
“I dropped my dad’s 100-year-old double-barrel, I don’t even remember doing that, and went for the sidearm that I carry with me underneath my jacket,” said Gorney. “My instincts as a military law enforcement officer took over. There was no thought process. It was self-defense.”
The mountain lion was within 10 feet of Gorney when it was hit by a bullet from Gorney’s 9-millimeter handgun.
On the last day of the year, in 2019, near the Pine Canyon trailhead, a few miles Northeast of Tucson, Arizona, Pima County Sheriff deputies discovered three mountain lions were feeding on a human body. The three lions were unafraid of people. The lions did not flee as officers approached. They were feeding on the body within sight of human homes. From kold.com: