Well, a power loss caused me to lose the post I was typing detailing the recent lions in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Anyone can read cougarnet.org to get the background behind them and the current situation. The difficulty around making official statements about cats being here can be shown by looking at the one best-known confirmation here in Oklahoma. It was a tagged cat that was born in the Black Hills of S. Dakota and managed to travel here in a few months time looking for its own territory (young male). It was killed by a train in northern Oklahoma after it's location had been recently pinpointed in North Dakota. What are authorities supposed to say to accurately provide information to Oklahomans and Kansans after that. The official statement is that we have occasional ones pass through but no resident ones except some possibly starting to make permanent homes in the far NW. There have been a few confirmation in other parts of the state that were not reported but they were more likely to be from the exotic pet trade than native, wild ones based on the evidence, so the wildlife people do not publicize them. The guy that killed the one in Kansas last year did so illegally, but got in almost no trouble because he cooperated and provided the remains to the wildlife people who were so eager to confirm the first one proven there in many years that they didn't press the issue. In Oklahoma btw you can kill any lion that is posing a danger to you or any livestock you own. It is perfectly legal. In fact, if you call the game warden in my local area to say you have one posing a danger to you or your animals, you will be told to kill it if needed and then call them back after you have. I'm sure there are many sightings in Oklahoma that are accurate and not mistaken identity, but the vast majority are incorrect. This is obvious by the fact that more black ones are reported than any other color, and there is no large black cat that exists anywhere near here except for the ones (not cougars) imported to this country as part of the exotic pet trade. That is absolute FACT. Even these are now heavily regulated so they are almost non-existent. Sorry, I have been out of town and didn't get a chance to read this thread the last few days. No hard feelings from this end. I just want people to know the facts of the situation. There is a big difference between being mistaken and lying. I am mistaken a lot, but I don't lie. Nobody is saying that most people who say they have seen cougars are liars, it is just mistaken identity. The truth should not offend anyone, and eventually when we start seeing evidence of resident populations, I will as happy as anyone. I think it is starting, but I think our population density combined with their needed size of home range will make it almost impossible for them to increase in population very much in most of Oklahoma. After all, between 20% and 30% of all the highly studied cougars in the remote Black Hills area were killed by autos over a three year period. BTW, I killed another pygmy rattlesnake last week!

RE: Snakes. I live in TX, not near NM, but I have lived in areas where I was likely to find a snake in or near the house. The most important thing to do to avoid finding a snake in your house is to keep the grass/groundcover low, low, low. We live in the middle of Austin and we have tons of baby copperheads and rat snakes in our yard if we don't mow often. When the grass is short, we never find them. When it's long, we see tons. So the "no grass" advice is probably very good advice! Also, some pest services will offer a "snake repellent" service where they spray or spread something (I don't know what) around your foundation every 3 months or so to keep snakes from coming inside. I've never used the service, so I don't know how well it works or how eco-friendly it is, but my friend swears by it. She moved to Austin from St. Petersburg (Russia) and was COMPLETELY freaked to find scorpions, tarantulas, snakes, centipedes, milipedes, roaches, deer, racoons, coyotes and even an armadillo in and around the house she rented (inside city limits but near a greenbelt), so she quickly became familiar with all the wildlife services in the phonebook! (She liked most of the critters, but I think she is permanently scarred by the scorpion experiences, even though she was never stung...) Good luck with your move! And no matter what you see in Alb, at least it's not Texas!

Great story Jem! My dad was a rice farmer for many years and he really encountered a lot of snakes out in the fields especially during the times when they had to flood the rice fields. He also had the pump station that would pump the water from the bayou near by into his fields. The screen down in the water inlet would get stopped up and he would have to dive down in the muddy water and reach down in there and pull out what ever was blocking the inlet screen. He never knew what he would be grabbing! Could be a water moccasin or cotton mouth, a snapping turtle, a big fish or just a wad of water lilies. Thank goodness he never once was bitten doing that. He had several venomous snakes bite and stick into his big heavy boots. Walking around in the fields in water was a dangerous job. He would come home often with something in his shirt pocket for me. A little turtle quite often. I had an aquarium with a collection of the little turtles he would bring to me. I would keep them for a while and then return them to the fields when they were a little bigger. The life of a farmer is a very difficult life in so many way!

Here are a couple of cycads in a greenhouse I haven't shown yet. The The first one is an Encephalartos gratus from Mozambique in a 45 gallon container that has about 30 inches of trunk. The last plant is an E. ferox, tubular form female in a 90 gallon container. If anyone ever does buy this plant, I'm not sure how I will move it. But I will figure that out if the time comes. I'd probably have to rent a bobcat with forks on it. The picture really doesn't show that is is 10 feet across.This second picture just shows all kinds of different cycads. Looks like a cycad jungle.