I went with a friend yesterday morning to northern Missouri to do some work in his mothers house that they now have up for sale. The town we went to is Called Unionville and is set amongst rolling hills and valleys and almost all of it, except the bottom ground which there isn’t a whole lot of, is pasture and hardwood timber. We just passed over into Missouri and stopped at a gas station and a couple turkey hunters were coming out of the station and I broke into a conversation with them and asked how the turkeys are this year.
We started talking and said the bobcat population has exploded in the last three years and he said hes even seen kittens last fall. He said 4 years ago the turkeys were double what they are now, but still alot of turkeys available and there were a bunch of turkey hunters all over and everywhere we went. He got into another conversation about how many cougars there are there and said the farmers are getting tired of them and all the red tape they have to go through with the DNR and alot of them are just shooting them on the spot. He said theres been cattle killed, which all the pastures have eigther Whiteface or Angus in them and because of all the redtape, the Farmers don’t leave the house without a gun of some sort, incase they can get a shot off. He said with the explosion of bobcats and the cougars around the turkeys are taking a hit.
Heres another one he said. He said a few years ago a circus or a fair came to one of the small towns and had a couple black panthers in thier show. He then said the female had kittens and they were selling them for $500 a piece and a local guy bought one. He said he knows who the guy is and after a couple years this black panther was more then he bargained for and turned it loose in the local area. He then said he has pictures of it prints, about 2 dozen and has a pop can in one of the prints to show its scale and he said when he measured it, it was 8-1/2″ across. He showed the pictures to the local DNR there and he said they have been looking for it. The DNR got back intouch with him and told him that a cat that size would be close too 250 pounds and that he was a big one. They had to get going to thier hunting spot and I had alot more questions to ask but they had to leave. Nature at its best in northern Missouri.
I know some of the guys here go to northen Missouri to hunt turkeys and deer and I’m wondering if anyone has heard the story about the panther around Unionville.
