[Great Hall of Rockwall] OT: Cougar Sighted North of Janesville?

[Kelli Quinn]

Are big cats back on Midwestern prowl?
More analysis is needed, but Wisconsin man's story suggests eastward migration

By Bob Secter | TRIBUNE REPORTER
February 22, 2008

MILTON, Wis. - Kevin Edwardson has been trapping wild animals for years, but he wasn't prepared for the creature that lunged at him from a hay mound in an abandoned barn last month.

It was a cat. A very big cat.

For a fleeting moment, Edwardson found himself face to face with a cougar, a majestic and reclusive predator that ranged the continent in pioneer days but was long ago driven from nearly everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains.

"It just blew me away," said Edwardson, 45. "It jumped once toward me and then took off through a big gap in the wall. It was so graceful it looked like a bird flying through the air."

Bounding 12 feet at a leap, the cat fled into the snowy woods near this southern Wisconsin town, about 25 miles from the Illinois border. It hasn't surfaced since, but experts here are convinced Edwardson's story is real and marks the first confirmed sighting of a cougar in Wisconsin in more than a century.

It could also represent evidence of the easternmost push of the big cats back into the Midwest.

Illinois wildlife officials, like those in Wisconsin and other states, are frequently flooded with reports of cougar sightings. Often, though not always, they can be quickly dismissed as dogs, coyotes, bobcats or the product of vivid imaginations.

But the Milton cat apparently cut a paw as it fled the barn and left traces of blood in its tracks. DNA analysis confirms that blood came from a cougar, also known as a mountain lion, puma or panther.

Officials are awaiting the results of further DNA tests to determine the sex -- likely a male if the cougar is truly wild -- and the subspecies. If its genes are linked to South American lions, then it is probably a fugitive from somebody's exotic pet collection. North American genes wouldn't flatly rule out that possibility, but they also could suggest a more intriguing scenario.

Cats on the move

Ecologists say cougar habitats in the Rockies and Black Hills have become crowded over the last few decades, leading young males to venture out in what are less migrations than they are feline reconnaissance missions into far-flung territory.

The turn east is a simple call of nature. In the Great Plains and Midwest, cougars instantly become the undisputed top predator, with few wolves and no grizzly bears to compete for prey. And the pickings are easy, with woods and fields teeming with that most delectable of mountain lion treats: deer.

"The banquet is open," explained Clay Nielsen, a wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University's Carbondale campus. He is also scientific research director for The Cougar Network, which tracks cougar populations.

Since 1990, Nielsen's group has confirmed dozens of sightings from the Great Plains to Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. House cats may recoil at water, but their big cousins are undeterred by rivers like the Mississippi, and at least two appear to have crossed to Illinois this decade.

In 2000, a train struck and killed a 110-pound male in Randolph County southeast of St. Louis. In 2004, a bow hunter in Mercer County southwest of the Quad Cities killed a 95-pound male.

Before that, the last confirmed sighting of a wild cougar in Illinois was in 1862 at the state's southern tip.

Cougars could easily maul a human, yet it rarely happens. Nocturnal and intensively secretive, they avoid contact with people.

But that shyness also makes it difficult to verify sighting claims or pinpoint whether a cat is definitely wild. It's possible to buy cougars for pets -- though not always legally -- and captives have been known to get loose. Some display telltale signs of captivity such as tags, collars or a familiarity with humans.

That was a giveaway a few years ago at a state conservation area west of Springfield when a cougar suddenly emerged from the brush, according to John Buhnerkempe, division chief for wildlife resources at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Experts knew instantly it wasn't wild because it sidled up to the site superintendent and rubbed against him like a kitty, Buhnerkempe said.

Female cougars don't roam as readily as males, and ecologists have yet to identify signs that a breeding population has moved into the Midwest. Males are loners and have been known to wander up to 1,000 miles.

Any headed this way are probably in for a forlornly celibate existence. Bumping into another cougar -- let alone a potential mate -- in such a vast expanse is a tall order.

"You've got to have a male and a female, in unfamiliar territory, get together at the right time with the right kind of music and chocolates," said Nielsen. "What is the chance of that?"

Tough, but not impossible. It has happened with other species that had all but vanished from these parts.

River otters, bobcats and coyotes are now thriving in Illinois and surrounding states. Wolves have re-colonized parts of Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. Black bears from the Ozarks have been found in Missouri near St. Louis. Even armadillos have scooted up from Texas into southern Illinois.

Few confirmed sightings

These days, rumors of cougar sightings seem to be moving even faster than the cats themselves. It was only four years ago that a cougar hysteria swept Lake County, with dozens of sighting claims leading schools to keep children indoors for recess. Nothing was ever found.

>From a distance, it could be easy to mistake a big tan colored dog for a cougar, which can weigh 100 to 150 pounds when young. The most striking feature of the cat, however, is a tail as long as two-thirds of its body.

The Internet has proved a boon to the cougar-phobic, rapidly spreading rumors and hoaxes. Recently, state wildlife managers in Illinois took the unusual step of declaring that two widely circulated cyberspace claims involving cougars were specious.

One false rumor has Illinois officials deliberately releasing cougars to thin the deer herd. Another involves photos of a cougar purportedly poking into a cabin in southern Illinois. Officials have traced the photos to a site in Lander, Wyo.

Back in Milton, just north of Janesville, Wis., the cat story isn't about rumors.

It began before dawn on the morning of Jan. 18 after a fresh snow. A farmer noticed unusual animal tracks in his driveway. They were more than three inches wide with no sign of claws. That ruled out a dog, which can't retract its claws. Cats, on the other hand, do when on the prowl.

The farmer called Edwardson, who followed the tracks into a nearby barn. He poked gingerly inside when the cougar sprung out of a pile of hay.

"He wanted nothing to do with me but got out of there really quick," Edwardson said.

State naturalists followed the tracks for 1.5 miles, but the cougar gave them the slip. It did leave a calling card, however. The blood was found in a paw print where the big cat had stopped to urinate.

Where it is now is anybody's guess. Doug Fendry, a state wildlife supervisor, said deteriorated tracks that appear cougarlike have been found since the initial sighting in spots far from Milton. One set was five miles from the Illinois border.

It could be headed north, back to the Mississippi, toward Chicago or just hanging around Milton, which for a time served as a convenient bed and breakfast.

"I've been around for 30 years in this business and I've learned never to say never," Fendry declared.



"I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all."

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

Down the Rabbit Hole: downrabbit.blogspot.com
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