That was one of a few thoughts that ran through my mind that night. It was a normal mission trying to intercept Taliban fighters whom had been attacking and harassing coalition forces. We had been working in the area a while and learned the patterns of life for the local civilians and wildlife, but had no luck detering or finding our quarry.
It was a dark night, the kind where people with sight feel blind. So dark, night vision gave us no advantage. We sat in a cluster of boulders, listening and watching terraced fields of maze with thermal sights. The night was unusually quiet with the exception of occasional ass bellowing across the valley. The bare fields we watched were absent of ferral dogs and coyotes that hunted and roamed during noctural hours. The canines didn't sing to one another, the heavens, or the lonely yellow moon. All you heard was the wind and mosquitoes obsessed with flying in your ears.
((Not actual image from event but placed as example))
After a couple hours of watching and scanning a white "hot" silhouette appeared on in front of us 200m out. It wasn't a man, and didn't move like a dog. The animal stayed low to the ground and slowly slinked across the field with its long tail swaying behind it. It jumped off the terrace and into the next field out of sight. Ten minutes later to our right, another white "hot" silhoutte came moving toward us down an irrigation ditch 150m out. The silhouette stopped and popped its head up every 30m out of the ditch. I couldn't make it out other than a heat signature because the brush around the trench, so I raised my rifle and followed the silhoutte as it moved. I didn't know if it was an animal or someone trying to sneak up on us. 50m away from our position the silhouette disappeared, maybe the trench got deeper or it just stopped moving. I looked over at my teammate and then back to the trench and sitting above the ditch 20m from us was a mountain lion watching. It moved with out a sound up the ditch and sat there silently staring like a statue. I switched my rifle from safe to fire ready to shoot if it came any closer, but hesitant to shoot because I didn't want to compromise our position. After a 5 minute staredown it lost interest and jumped off the trench wall and disappeared into the field. A short time later out of the corn on our left another lion walked 15m infront of us stopped and stared. I don't know how long it was there but eventually it disappeared back into the corn field.
When we returned to the local outpost, we talked about the mountain lions being so low in the valley. Came to two conclusions, that the summer was so dry they had to climb out of the mountains to look for food since it was so scarce. The second they were drawn by the presents of food (trash, goats, anything smaller than them) and the dogs that were shot to stop the spread of disease.
I have heard stories of guys seeing mountain lions in Afghanistan and about them sneaking up on them. This is the first time I have seen one that close and not through bars. The event sparked my curiousity so I decided to do some research. I was amazed to find out (if my assumption is correct from my the research I did online) that what we saw that night was probably an endangered snow leopard (if you now of any over big cats that roam afghanistan let me know). But to see 2 off them when there is only an estimated 100 to 200 in the country...heck yah. But when I found out they could jump up to 14m I kind of cringed. Thinking about it afterwards US soldiers killing Snow Leopards wouldn't sit well with PETA, World Wildlife Fund, or the international community. Especially after watching the Discovery Channel Special "Planet Earth" Snow Leopards look so cool. Regardless I'm an avid hunter and outdoorsmen and the thought of lion burgers and a new rug did cross my mind. But in retrospect had I shot the cats I would felt like a total jackass and I'm sure PETA would put a hit out on me. But I wasn't planning on becoming dinner either...
I can't spend an hour writing about Snow Leopards and not help out the cause... for more information on conservation and protecting majestic creatures like these go to....
World Wildlife Fund http://www.wwf.org/
Big Cat Rescue http://www.bigcatrescue.org/
Snow Leopard Info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_leopard
Leave me some Love...Cya Kyle...
Lifetime
