At the end of the day, though, Wolfe concluded the interview by saying, “What I’m really looking forward to is the breakfast sausage.”
— from “What You Need to Know About Colorado’s Proposed Lion Hunting Ban” by Eli Fournier on TheMeatEater.com, September 11, 2024.
As we approach the November election, it’s not entirely clear if immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Some people say “Yes”, and some people say “No”.
What’s much more likely — but still not completely proven — is that people are eating cats in Colorado.
Big cats. Like, mountain-lion-size cats.
I learned this at the website TheMeatEater.com, which is a website dedicated to eating meat (as the name suggests). More specifically, it’s a website dedicated to eating meat from ‘game animals’.
Most hunters in Colorado who eat game animals, eat deer meat (often referred to as “venison”) or elk meat (often referred to as “elk”).
But according to various sources, about 500 hunters each year here in Colorado eat mountain lion meat. (Not sure how the meat is often referred to. Probably, “mountain lion”.)
At least one hunter, interviewed for an article on TheMeatEater.com, makes his mountain lion meat into “breakfast sausage.”
Daily Post readers may be aware that the November election ballot will ask Colorado voters to weigh in on Proposition 127, which — if approved — will make it illegal to hunt or trap mountain lions, bobcats, and lynx.
Which would seem to also make it illegal to eat mountain lions, bobcats and lynx. But Proposition 127 doesn’t specifically say so.
What is currently illegal, in Colorado, is to kill a mountain lion, and not eat it. Colorado requires hunters who kill a mountain lion to prepare the meat “for human consumption”. You can’t kill a mountain lion just for a trophy, and throw away the meat. (At least, not legally.)
And no, you can’t feed the meat to your dog or cat.
Especially, not to your cat. That would be too weird.
But, if you are willing to eat the mountain lion, you can also keep the trophy. Colorado Parks & Wildlife, a department with the confusing job of protecting Colorado’s wildlife and also making sure it gets killed and eaten, posted a video about how to turn your dead mountain lion into a trophy (“life-size mount” or “rug”). The video is too gruesome to share on a family-friendly news website, but if you like the idea of a mountain lion trophy, you can view it here.
People who like killing and eating mountain lions are naturally opposed to Proposition 127, if for no other reason than they like breakfast sausage.
That’s not a huge number of people. For all we know, there might be more immigrants eating pet cats in Ohio, than there are hunters who eat mountain lions in Colorado. I don’t personally know anyone who has eaten a mountain lion. Or at least, no one has admitted it to me.
I do, however, know one person who has eaten a pet cat. But they don’t live in Colorado, so they won’t be able to vote on Prop 127. Actually, it was a feral cat, now that I think of it. Not a pet.
And no, it was not an immigrant who ate the cat.
I’ve seen a number of articles and letters in the media from people supporting a ‘Yes’ vote on Prop 127. Probably vegetarians. But they make some valid arguments, including the fact that, during a hunt, mountain lions are typically driven up into a tree by a pack of dogs, and the hunter comes along later and shoots the cat out of the tree.
This seems like an obvious violation of the “fair chase” ethics of hunting.
I would need to be extremely hungry for breakfast sausage before I would shoot a cat out of a tree.