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Re: (meteorobs) meteors and animals



In a message dated 98-08-15 00:45:17 EDT, you write:

<< 
 Just curious, what was your closest call with one of these mountain 
 kittens?
 
        >>

Ohhh...about a couple years ago while observing on top of the observatory,
there was a large mountain lion in a tree about 75 feet away. He fell out of
the tree and onto a chain link fence and made a big commotion about getting
away. That's how I knew it was there when it fell onto the fence. I don't know
if it was stalking me or the three sheep that I share the field with? On
another occasion...probably the same year, I saw about a 90 pound lion running
across the road near the observatory just as I pulled in during the daytime
for the perseids. My daughter saw it too. No encounter...just a sighting. On
another occasion after I finished up observing, I was walking the still
somewhat dark dawn sky picking up my extension cord to the observatory. There
was a young lion...about 40 to 50 pounds running parallel to me in the field.
It had a nice long tail. It was about 40 feet away. It didn't try to go for
me. I think it was just curious of what was there and trying to build up the
courage to go after me or the sheep. There was a lady hiker killed by a lion a
couple miles away from the observatory a couple years ago. This mornings paper
indicated they are still hunting for this recent cat encounters. The one that
killed the lady was latter hunted down and killed. My most serious animal
encounter is with the big ram that is in the field with me. His name is
Rambo...everytime I walk out there he chases me. I don't know how many times I
had to run around this large oak tree trying to outsmart him. Once he was
chasing me around my truck. I finally hopped inside and he didn't see me do
that. He kept running around the truck four more times before he gave up. 
George Zay