April 11, 2012 Cougar Family
 

My parents who live up north in Duluth, MN sent me these.

From my Dad's e-mail.

"This gives new meaning to the phrase, "Honey would you go outside and warm up the car for me?"

These were taken in the Central Hillside area in Duluth, MN."

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/Cougars.01.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/Cougars.02.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/Cougars.03.jpg

http://www.vaillife.net/assets/Cougars.04.jpg

Wow!

Tha's awesome. What a rare shot, thanks for sharing them with us.

Amazing, just amazing.

I saw three bears (mama 2babies) mtn biking Monday morning, that was beautiful... three large cats are just scary.

What pretty rugs they would make!

Not that I'm crying "shopped", but I actually live in central hillside, Duluth, and I don't think those photos were taken here.
Despite what the DNR says, yes, there are cougars that come near town, but you'd never find them lurking in central hillside (which is near downtown Duluth - lots of apartment buildings and small houses stacked next to each other, hardly a tree to be found).
The license plate on the white truck also is not a Minnesota license plate (though it could be from an out-of-towner).

Looks like a Colorado plate.

If they were mtn biking, I guess those circus bears really aren't that talented after all...:eyebrow:

Three on one bike even, wild bears have moar madder skilz than circus bears.

Beautiful??! Surprise a mother bear with cubs closer than about 60ft and I'm sure that would be about 10 shades whiter knuckles than the cougars.

Majestic kitties!!!!

You've got to be careful around cubs but at least black bears see you as a potential threat, while cats only see prey.

"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels."

*google* John Irving eh, that bears some looking into.

:)

One of my favoritest books ever.

So I got curious once the Colorado license plate was pointed out to me. I did a Google image search and although I could not find the New Jersey article (The cougars have been claimed to have been seen there) I did find this comment in a thread.

Seems a bit more plausible. I was just repeating the info my Dad had sent me me. I apologize for misleading anyone. (I did confirm that Tyler Baskfield exists and is actually an employee of the Colorado Division of Natural Resources.)

ADDED: From Googling "Conifer Cougar Pictures" it eventually led me to this forum. So far this seems to be the earliest posting of these pictures so may be the true origin of them. http://www.hayabusa.org/forum/random...them-pics.html

ADDED # 2: So seeing how much I could find out on this potentially "original" photo I entered it into a meta-data reader. (Cool program/site you can find here. http://www.findexif.com/) The info there lists that the photo was taken November 2nd 2003. I could not find a Geotag on it.