Cougars in N. Chicago, IL

[Emily]

There have been several recent articles about possible cougar sightings in in the Chicago area!
http://www.journal-topics.com/dp/08/dp080404.2.html
Cougar Terrified City In '50s

By TROY BRUZEWSKI

Journal Reporter

North Chicago is not alone in being the location of a recent cougar sighting.

Approximately 50 years ago, Des Plaines was gripped by such an occurrence. Fearful local residents stayed in their homes for several days as authorities searched in vain for the big cat.

The most recent sighting sparked lots of reminiscing by former resident and attorney John T. Burke who remembers the incident very well. The Des Plaines spotting of a cougar occurred in the late 1950s in what was then Burke's neighborhood on Columbia Avenue near Weller Creek, situated near Golf and Mt. Prospect roads.

Burke, in a telephone interview with the Journal & Topics Newspapers this week, recalled when the first report came in from a frightened local woman. Her report at first wasn't taken very seriously by local authorities.

"I think the police said it was another case of a housewife having too many martinis," Burke said. "But this woman was smart enough to know what she saw - two lantern-like eyes looking at her through the window as she washed dishes."

Still, police responded, but found nothing except large footprints.

Burke said the matter became a point of ridicule for a short period of time and even then City Attorney Jim Dowd poked fun at the matter. At the time, Burke handled several zoning cases in Des Plaines and was friends with Dowd.

"When (Dowd) heard about this he was laughing and thought it was a really ridiculous story," Burke said.

However, the story quickly became more believable to authorities when Dowd was sent fleeing into his house after claiming to see a "mountain lion" in his backyard. Suddenly, Burke said, the issue was no longer a laughing matter.

"One night he came running into the house to call police, saying there was a mountain lion in his back yard," Burke recalled. "I guess the police figured it's the city attorney, so they better look into it." Again, nothing was found except large footprints, which Burke said were later determined to be a cougar, based on the reported size, color and diameter of the paw prints.

It also became a serious matter for the entire neighborhood, which was on lockdown, according to Dowd's daughters, Tara Gurber and Ronie Kaechelle.

Both were elementary school students, and during the summer of the cougar sighting, spent a lot of time indoors, compared to other summers.

"Our dad didn't want us outside," Gurber said. "Our parents were scared to death.

"We got to see other kids' houses during the daylight hours, which never happened before."

Kaechelle eventually wrote a poem about cougars which later published in a local newspaper. The poem was about how cougars sleep during the day and prowl at night. When streetlights came on in the neighborhood that summer, Des Plaines youngsters knew they had to be inside.

"All of a sudden, we were inside people's houses, rather than being outside," Kaechelle said. "Parents were fearful for their children."

Ironically, Kaechelle now lives in Poway, Calif., which has several such sightings each year.

"Out here, it's kind of a 'ho-hummer' seeing a cougar or mountain lion," she said. "There are many and people out here actually need to be prepared and know what to do when they come into contact with one."

The two sisters said they heard speculation the Des Plaines cougar of five decades ago had escaped from a circus train that had come to town. Burke said in later years that it was his understanding that an Arlington Hts. resident had a cougar as a pet and released it. That likely was the animal witnesses saw, Burke said.

In the recent North Chicago sightings, three residents called police to report seeing a cougar-like animal walking near Argonne Drive and Seymour Avenue on the morning of Friday, Mar. 28.

It was described as approximately 30 inches tall and tan in color. North Chicago police officers scoured the area, but found nothing except prints.

Reportedly, North Chicago Animal Warden Ted McClelland said the prints were consistent with a large cat, most likely a cougar or mountain lion.

[Emily]

http://www.wbbm780.com/pages/1918013.php?

More Cougar Sightings In Lake County

NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. (STNG) -- Despite another sighting called in to police, no cougar was bagged as of Sunday evening by officials in North Chicago, who have been receiving eyewitness reports of a big cat in the far north suburb since Friday morning.

Those included one from a police officer who nearly struck it with his squad car.

In Sunday's action, police Sgt. Kurt Nash said a motorist reported seeing an animal resembling a cougar around 10:30 a.m. near 14th Street and Lewis Avenue in North Chicago. The motorist added that the animal was heading west into the Greenbelt Forest Preserve.

In addition, a resident who did not wish to be identified told The News-Sun that he was walking in the forest preserve with another person around 12:30 p.m. and "we rounded the corner and ran face to face with the cougar. He was about 50 yards in front of us behind the Cultural Center on Green Bay Road."

"We stared at each other for about one minute before I slowly backed away," the resident reported. "I am a hunter, and there was no mistaking this animal for a deer. It was approximately five feet long, and was without a doubt a cougar."

On Friday morning, three people reported seeing a cougar-like animal in the area of Argonne Drive and Seymour Avenue.

Around 10 p.m. Friday, according to North Chicago Animal Warden Ted McClelland, credible reports had the cougar spotted on top of the North Chicago youth center near 16th Street and Lewis.

Officers surrounded the area, but the animal was not found. Paw prints were found at the scene. "We have three or four sightings from police officers. It's not a phantom animal at this point," McClelland said.

The plan now, McClelland said, is to try to team with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Lake County Forest Preserve officers to possibly track the animal and apprehend it.

McClelland has been armed with tranquilizing equipment that the DNR has told him would take down a big cat if a clear and relatively short shot can be made.

[Emily]

Cougar Spotted In North Chicago
http://www.nbc5.com/news/15741384/detail.html

POSTED: 3:58 pm CDT March 29, 2008
UPDATED: 4:16 pm CDT March 29, 2008

NORTH CHICAGO -- Police in suburban North Chicago fanned out late Friday night on the lookout for a cougar. Police searched the area around 15th and Lewis on foot and patrol cars and sharpshooters took position aboard a fire truck bucket after reports that a large animal had been spotted near the Park District Youth Center.
Police were on the scene from about 9:35 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. but called off the search after not finding anything.
Reports of a cougar sighting initially came in Friday morning.

[Emily]

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/news ... S1.article
click for pix


North Chicago police search for possible cougar
'This thing was huge'


March 29, 2008
BY NICHOLAS P. ALAJAKIS NALAJAKIS@SCN1.COM
NORTH CHICAGO -- The cougar apparently got away.

North Chicago police officers were not able to capture a large cat-like animal reportedly on top of a building near the city’s police department Friday evening.

Just before 10 p.m. Friday officers received a report of what was believed to be a cougar on top of the North Chicago youth center, near 16th Street and Lewis Avenue. They surrounded he area, but the animal was not found, a department representative said.

As of Saturday afternoon, there were no additional reports of cougar sightings in the city.

Early Friday three people phoned police to report seeing a cougar-like animal walking in the area of Argonne Drive and Seymour Avenue.

» Click to enlarge image

Two armed personnel take position on board a North Chicago Fire Department bucket Friday night to check the roof of the Park District Youth Center on Lewis Avenue for a possible cougar.
(Joe Shuman/Special to the News-Sun)

» Click to enlarge image

The paw prints on the left each more than four inches across, were found in snow and mud Friday in North Chicago. Some residents say they belong to a cougar, similar to the ones pictured on the right.
(Thomas Delany, Jr./News-Sun/AP File)

» Click to enlarge image

Cheryl Coleman describes the large animal -- maybe a cougar -- that ran past her car while she was at a stop sign Friday near Argonne Drive and Seymour in North Chicago.

RELATED STORIES
• Audio: Cougar growl
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"This thing was huge. At first I actually thought it was deer," said North Chicago resident Cheryl Coleman.

Coleman was in her car around 8:30 a.m. at the southeast corner of Argonne Drive and Seymour Avenue when she looked across the street and spotted what appeared to be a very large cat.

The tan-colored, 30-inch tall animal was slowly walking between two houses in the 1400 block of Argonne. Its long, thick tail dangling behind.

"I was sitting there stunned," Coleman said. "This looked like a mountain lion or a cougar. My first reaction was to put my window up."

Coleman said she saw the animal walk north across Argonne and into another person's yard. She then called police.

Coleman said she didn't think anyone would believe her, but she wasn't alone. North Chicago police received three calls from people claiming to see a large tan cat, said Lt. Curtis Brame.

Officers scoured the area, but found only footprints. At least five of those prints were found in snow and mud near the home of Helen Sasavage. The longtime North Chicago resident said she was inside when the big cat was apparently making its rounds. But when she went to take out the trash, she noticed the paw prints, which measured more than 4 inches across.

"The (paw prints) were larger than a cat or dog," Sasavage said. "I don't know where that animal came from. I think he was lost."

If he was lost, he certainly wasn't easy to find. North Chicago Animal Warden Ted McClelland circled the neighborhood all morning looking for a large cat, but saw nothing.

McClelland said he found more than dozen paw prints from 20th Street north to 16th Street, but no sign of the cat. The prints were consistent with a large cat, most likely a cougar or mountain lion, he said.

"We can't yet say for sure what it was," said McClelland, who had a tranquilizer gun with him as he drove around.

If the cougar was still in the area Friday afternoon, it was likely hiding in one of the many tall evergreen trees in the area, or was sunning on someone's rooftop, McClelland said.

Anyone who sees the animal is asked to immediately call 9-1-1 and should not try to capture it.

"It's a safety issue," McClelland said. "We can't have (a cougar) running around here at night."

This isn't the first time a cougar sighting has been reported in Lake County. In December 2004, a Waukegan police officer claimed to have seen a cougar on the Amstutz Expressway, and a few months earlier, numerous people in western Lake County reported seeing a cougar. Those reports were never substantiated.

According to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, cougars in Illinois are rare. In a press release issued last month, the agency said only two cougars have been found in Illinois since 1862. Both were found dead in Mercer County (2004) and Randolph County (2000).



several days later:
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/news ... S1.article

Cop has cougar encounter

April 3, 2008
By FRANK ABDERHOLDEN fabderholden@scn1.com
All the guessing and speculation about a cougar running loose would have been over in the amount of time it would take North Chicago Police Officer Steven Shilaita to pull the trigger on his service handgun.

Shilaita was ending his shift last Friday, and was in the parking lot of the North Chicago Police Department when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

» Click to enlarge image

City of North Chicago Animal Warden Ted McClelland patrols the area along 17th Street and Grove looking for a cougar possibly sighted by some area residents. Tracks were found in the snow and mud in the area of Argonne Drive and Seymour in North Chicago.
(Thomas Delany Jr./News-Sun)

RELATED STORIES
• More cougar sightings reported
• Photos: North Chicago cougar?
Cougar talk
Dr. Clay Nielsen, director of scientific research at The Cougar Network, will be the speaker at the Liberty Prairie Conservancy meeting April 24 at 7 p.m. at the Radke House in Libertyville. Included will be a book of David Baron's book "The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator's Deadly Return to Suburban America." For more information, go to www.libertyprairie.org.

"I looked up and I saw this huge cat," he said, describing the animal as about 4-feet-tall at the head and 5-feet-long, brown in color and weighing about 250 pounds.

"It was very big. It was walking toward the front end of my squad car," he continued. He pulled his weapon and had one foot out the open door. "I had my gun pointed at the animal," he said.

The big cat bounded away west into a nearby wooded area as the officer was reporting the incident on his radio.

"It was a frightening sight. It was four and a half feet away," he said. He has no doubt about what he saw and now his co-workers are having fun with his new nickname "Lion Hunter."

"All I know, I've seen animals like that in the zoo. The guys are giving me a hard time," he said. He wishes some of them would get a look at it as he did, "Then they'll feel what I felt," he said.

The cougar sightings in the city have dwindled this week, except for the crank call April Fool's Day about how it was captured on the roof of the high school. But police were able to get a casting of suspected footprints.

"We should have them in a few days," said Chris McCloud, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

"We'll have someone look at it and if we can't determine whether it's a cougar we will send it to the Southern Illinois University for identification by their experts," he said.

[Emily]

cop-witness estimates weight at 270 lbs!

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?sectio ... id=6053023


By Sarah Schulte
NORTH CHICAGO, Ill. (WLS) -- A search is underway for a cougar that has been spotted roaming suburban North Chicago since last Friday. Police have received at least three calls from people who saw the large animal.

"The head of this animal, well, you see stuff like that in the zoo. It was huge," said Officer Steven Shilata, North Chicago Police.

Shilata says his brush with the cougar was the scariest moment of his career. He was sitting in his squad car last Friday afternoon when the cop became a witness.

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"I was just sitting with my head down finishing up a report, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this huge cat. I didn't know it was a cougar, lion, tiger," said Shilata.

As with any threatening suspect, he got out of the car and took aim while calling his sergeant on the radio.

"He was frantic, you know. It was intense. He asked me for permission to shoot it. I told him negative," said Sgt. Kurt Nash, North Chicago Police.

But the cat had taken off and has yet to be apprehended, although there have been five more sightings. Fifteen-year-old Anthony Scott saw the cougar on top of North Chicago's youth center.

"When we shined the light, his eyes glowed," Scott said.

Elizabeth Morrissey is staying in after she saw a print in her neighbor's yard.

"It was exactly like a horseshoe and there were four or six of them," said Morrissey.

Police are on the case. They describe the perpetrator as being tan, 4 feet tall, 7 feet long, between 250 and 275 pounds, with a brown coat and gray whiskers. Some residents are taking the matter in their own hands.

"I know I can catch him. I'm a hunter. There's not a doubt in my mind," said Melvin Brown, resident.

Everyone here has a theory of where the big cat came from.

"He got away from the zoo."

"I guess the carnival or something. Some truck overturned."

"It could have came from Wisconsin."

We blame everything else on the cheeseheads, why not the cougar? Police believe the animal is still in the area. To protect citizens, North Chicago Police are going to have extra patrols and undercover officers on the case. If you do see the animal, they say please call 9-1-1.

Even though there have been several sightings, the cougar has not injured anyone, and it has not attacked any animals.

[NWKemDawg]

Interesting ... it's pretty unlikly that its a Cougar if its 250-275 Lbs. Tho.

[Emily]

from the Daily Herald
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=172934
click for pix and comments

Cougar shot, killed in Chicago
Not known if cat was in suburbs
By Mick Zawislak | Daily Herald StaffContact writer
Published: 4/15/2008 12:12 AM
(94) | read | post
Buzz up!

A large cat believed to be a cougar was shot and killed by police Monday in an alley on Chicago's North Side.

Chicago police said an officer shot and killed a 150-pound cougar. Several residents reported seeing the cat, which was more than 5 feet long, earlier Monday.

"He just zoomed across the street, hurdled a 6-foot fence like nothing," resident Frank Hirschmann told ABC 7 Chicago.

Authorities said the animal's body will be checked for any markings, microchips or tags that would show if it is owned by anyone.

"He leaped the fence into the alley where two officers shot and killed the cougar in the back of the garage here," said Chicago police Cmdr. John Kenny.

"Initially, the animal charged at officers, shots were fired at the animal (and) the animal ran to a yard," Kenny said.

"The animal is very excited, it's disturbed, it's scared. It could have attacked a person if it was cornered," Kenny said.

"How long has this thing been in the neighborhood? I mean, this is Roscoe Village. … This is the city of Chicago," Roscoe Village resident Ted Wallace said.

Residents of the North Side village seemed just as concerned about gunshots in their neighborhood as much as they were about the cougar.

"I would say there were probably three sets of shots, six shots in each set," resident Shannon Johnston told ABC 7 Chicago.

Where it came from and whether it is the same animal seen recently in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois was not immediately known.

"This doesn't look like it's a very thin cat. It looks like it's got good flesh on it," Mark Rosenthal, of Chicago Animal Care and Control, the group that is performing an necropsy on the animal, told ABC 7 Chicago.

"It was eating well on some level, wherever it was," Rosenthal said.

"They should be able to tell if this is a wild cougar based on the DNA tests and the necropsy," according to Mark Dowling, co-founder of the Cougar Network, a nonprofit research organization.

Dowling said he was not surprised a cougar could live in this area. He thought there may be two possibilities: that it was a captive animal on the loose or a potential "disperser" from a western population.

He said he did not think there was a wild breeding population in the area, as the nearest populations are in the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota.

In any case, there will be several wildlife experts interested in the findings.

Reports of a large cat circulated in two Lake County communities over the past few weeks, and in both cases, police officers were among the eyewitnesses.

A cast of a paw print gathered in North Chicago from several sightings reported March 28, later was identified by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources as being canine in nature.

In that instance, a police officer reported that a large cat came and rubbed up against his squad car as he was writing a report in the police station parking lot. The officer said it was within a few feet and that he had it in his gunsight, but it was scared off by radio chatter and he didn't fire.

On April 3, a resident of Round Lake Park about 14 miles to the west, reported seeing a large cat in his back yard. A responding police officer saw it as well. An evidence team was called but could not obtain any paw prints.

Although the number of reports were few, especially compared to the hundreds received in 2004, their nature prompted the Lake County Health Department on April 4 to ask residents -- if they were at a safe distance -- to take pictures or video if they spotted the animal.

The department also said the animal that had been sighted "appears to be afraid of humans." No pictures or video have been submitted.

The cougar watch was dormant for about a week until last Saturday, when Wilmette police said they received reports from four different residents, who said they saw an animal each believed to be a cougar near the CTA's Fourth and Linden Station. The animal was not located. Wilmette is about 35 miles from Round Lake Park.

Cougars can range hundreds of miles but typically roam areas of 125 to 175 square miles, the Lake County Health Department reported, meaning it could be nearly anywhere in the area.

Authorities in Wisconsin also have been interested in the Lake County sightings, as genetic test results positively identified an animal seen in January as being a male cougar of North American origin.

While those genetics did not eliminate the possibility the cat had been captive, "it does make it more likely that the cougar is completely wild," according to Adrian Wydeven, mammal ecologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

That was the first confirmed cougar sighting in Wisconsin in 100 years.

A track found several weeks later in Elkhorn, Wis., also was identified as being that of a cougar and was thought to be the same animal.

In Illinois, the existence of cougars have been confirmed only twice since the 1860s -- one in 2000 in Chester and one in 2004 in Mercer County.

There are no state rules or regulations protecting cougars in Illinois because they were not considered native to Illinois when the state wildlife code was written, according to Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud.

[Emily]

http://gazettextra.com/news/2008/apr/15 ... -area-cat/
click for comments and pix

DNR: Dead cougar in Chicago could be Milton-area cat
By GINA DUWE ( Contact ) Tuesday, April 15, 2008 EMAIL COMMENTS
Photo


Members of the Chicago Police Department work a shooting scene Monday in the alley behind at 3422 N. Hoyne in suburban Chicago, involving the Police Deparment and a wild cougar.
Photo


A cougar that was shot and killed by the Chicago Police Department in the alley at 3422 N. Hoyne in suburban Chicago on Monday.
CHICAGO — The cougar spotted near Milton might be dead.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources officials hope to compare DNA from a cougar shot Monday by police on Chicago’s North Side to DNA from a cougar spotted northeast of Milton in January.

Chicago police said an officer shot and killed a 150-pound cougar in an alley after several residents reported seeing the cat, which was more than 5 feet long.

“It’s real intriguing,” said Wisconsin DNR wildlife supervisor Doug Fendry. “I certainly would not rule out the possibility that it’s the same cougar that we’ve had in our area.”

Fendry first heard the news when a Chicago Tribune reporter called him Monday night. He later spoke with Chicago police, who told him the big cat appeared to feel threatened when officers approached, and police decided they had to shoot it.

Chicago Police Capt. Mike Ryan said in a Chicago Tribune article no officers were hurt.

“It was turning on the officers,” the Tribune quoted him as saying. “There was no way to take it into custody.”

According to the Tribune article, no one knew where the cougar came from, though Wilmette police on Saturday had received four reports of a cougar roaming that suburb, roughly 15 miles from the site of Monday’s shooting.

DNR officials last month said DNA testing showed the young male cougar seen near Milton is of North American origin and likely roamed here from the Black Hills area of South Dakota in search of new territory.

Officials confirmed in January cougar tracks near Clinton about 2 miles north of the Illinois border, and on March 7 a state conservation warden found cougar tracks northeast of Elkhorn.

“Unfortunately, it could have wandered to Chicago, not knowing where to go, (and found itself) in an unusual surrounding,” Fendry said.

Fendry will talk with his counterparts in Illinois today to get a DNA sample from the dead cougar. Those samples would be sent to a Montana lab, but it’s unknown how long testing could take, he said.

Light colorings on the dead cougar also point Fendry to thinking it could be the young cougar that has roamed here. Young cougars don’t lose their spots that quickly, so light spots would be expected on a young male cougar from South Dakota, he said.

“That kind of backs up the possibility,” he said.

While officials quoted in the Tribune article did not know the cougar’s gender, Fendry said the photos he’s seen lead him to believe it’s a male.

“It’s certainly a very viable possibility that it is (the same cougar),” Fendry said. “It could have easily traveled in that direction and found itself in harm’s way.”

[Emily]

Wilmette put on cougar alert
4 reports of sightings spur cops' warning

By Alexa Aguilar | Tribune reporter
April 14, 2008
:




Two weeks after several reported sightings of a cougar on the prowl in North Chicago, four Wilmette residents are convinced they saw a big cat, too.

Wilmette police said they received four reports Saturday morning of a cougar in the 300 block of 3rd Street near the CTA Linden station.




Police searched the area, but found no sign of a cougar.

"I've seen deer, opossums, raccoons, foxes and coyotes in this neighborhood," said Gail Teague, a Wilmette resident who lives on 3rd Street. "But a cougar? Now that would be unusual."

So unusual that there have only been two confirmed cougars found in Illinois in more than a century. In 2000, a train struck and killed a male cougar in Randolph County and in 2004, a bow hunter in Mercer County killed a 95-pound male. Before that, the last confirmed sighting in Illinois of a wild cougar was in southern Illinois in 1862.

But wildlife experts say there is some preliminary evidence that cougars are prowling eastward from their normal habitats west of the Rocky Mountains. In January, a trapper in a Wisconsin town 25 miles from the Illinois border came face-to-face in a barn with a big cat that fled into the woods. Officials tested blood the animal left behind and confirmed it was a cougar.

At the end of March, several North Chicago residents, including a police officer, reported cougar sightings. Officials searched, but found nothing. They did discover the paw print of a "very big cat."

North Chicago is about 20 miles north of Wilmette.

In 2004, there were dozens of reports from people in Lake County who were convinced they saw the big cat. Officials hired a trapper to search out the animal, and schools kept children indoors for recess. A cougar was never found, and officials described some of the sightings as coyotes or large dogs.

Teague said Sunday that she heard the news of the cougar spotting from a neighbor. Other residents expressed surprise and some skepticism about the sighting, but said they would keep their eyes peeled nonetheless.

Wilmette police are asking residents that they not approach the cougar if they see it and to immediately call police.

aaguilar@tribune.com

[Emily]

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20 ... /417582834

Cat tales: Cougar dies in Chicago alley
Published Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 11:09 a.m.
A story in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune is headlined "Cops kill cougar on North Side." That's a reference to the north side of a city not known for the presence of 150-pound cats.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 8147.story

The Chicago Daily Herald reported Tuesday, "In Illinois, the existence of cougars have been confirmed only twice since the 1860s," in 2004 and 2000.
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=172934

More on the Chicago story in a moment. First, Sarasota Herald-Tribune colleague Vicki Dean forwarded a story from Sunday's Naples Daily News headlined "Panther killed on State Route 29."

The cat, described by a biologist as a 1-year-old female, was struck last Saturday night on the two-lane highway east of Big Cypress National Preserve. That leaves about 80 Florida panthers alive in the wild, scientists say.
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/apr ... e-road-29/

"A biologist with the federal preserve, Deborah Jansen, has repeatedly called on authorities to erect fences along the length of State Route 29...to keep panthers at bay," the newspaper reported.

"More panthers have been killed on S.R. 29 than any other road," the article said.

Apparently all the federal fence money is spent along the Mexican border in Arizona and Texas.

Meanwhile, the dead cougar in Chicago looked like one viewable on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HADjWBd_TUY

What sound does a cougar make? That and other information is available here:
http://www.bigcatrescue.org/cats/wild/cougar.htm

Chicagoans were warned a few days ago to stay away from cougars. One was spotted near a transit station.
http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... =menu132_3

The Chicago Tribune story, written by Jeremy Manier and Tina Shah, began this way: "A cougar ran loose in Chicago Monday for the first time since the city's founding in the 19th century."

Ben Greene witnessed the shooting, the Tribune reported. Around 6 p.m. Monday, Greene heard gunfire and "police yelling, 'We got him! We got him!' He ventured downstairs" in his house "and moved on his knees to the front door, where he saw police officers on his front lawn. The officers had shot holes in an air conditioning unit on the side of Greene's house while aiming for the tan cougar, which died in an alley near Greene's garage."

That was not a noble death for a noble animal.

"Normally reclusive creatures, most cougars retreated to habitats in the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills early in American history," the Tribune reported. "But some researchers believe overcrowding in recent years has driven the animals back east."

Cougars weren't specifically mentioned by Donald L. Burton and Kelly A. Doblar at the 4th Annual International Symposium on Urban Wildlife Conservation, held in 1999 at the University of Tucson. But in a scholarly paper titled "Morbidity and mortality of urban wildlife in the midwestern United States," Burton and Doblar came to an obvious conclusion: "Uncontrollable human population growth, cities, roads and urban sprawl are rapidly replacing natural habitat, local vegetation, and native wildlife. Wildlife species must adapt to change if their populations are to remain viable."
http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/adjunct/snr0704/

Florida panthers are bedeviled by development.

Chicagoans, meanwhile, obviously are not ready to adapt to change if change involves a cougar in the neighborhood.

Larry Evans is a blogger for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He can be reached at larry.evans@heraldtribune.com



Last modified: April 15, 2008 12:32pm

[Emily]

click for pix and.or comments:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0 ... cougar/?hp

April 15, 2008, 2:03 pm
Chicago Police Face Off With a Rare Suspect: A Cougar
By MIKE NIZZA

A cougar in captivity in Maine Wildlife Park. (Photo: galfred via Flickr)
The concept of the “fact box” was dreamed up by newspaper designers especially for the busy reader. Alarm clock rings, coffee pours, newspaper pages flip, out the door you go in a minimum of time.

But this particular example of the form, from Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, may have persuaded more than a few city dwellers to linger indoors for just a few extra moments:

ENCOUNTERING A COUGAR

– Pick up children immediately.

– Do not approach it. Give the cougar an avenue for escape.

– Do not run; this can trigger an attack.

– Back away without turning your back on it.

– Do all you can to look bigger. Don’t hide or crouch down.

The paper was covering four reported sightings of a big cat on Saturday in Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago. Gail Teague, a resident interviewed by The Tribune, was not quite as surprised by the news as one might expect, having seen deer, opossums, raccoons, foxes and coyotes in her area. “But a cougar? Now that would be unusual,” she said.

An explanation that no cougars had been sighted at large in the state of Illinois in the entire 20th century (though two have been spotted since then) returned the Tribune’s news article to more comforting ground, but the threat was absolutely real nonetheless, as this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times showed:

City dwellers, consider this a confirmation: It is a jungle out there.

And residents of the North Side’s Roscoe Village neighborhood found out firsthand Monday when a cougar — or mountain lion, as authorities alternately referred to it — pawed around their neighborhood and authorities shot and killed it.

The cougar, 5 feet long and 150 pounds, did not hurt anyone before it was shot, at a spot about 15 miles from the sightings over the weekend. Whether it was the same cougar — and whether it was loosed from a private owner rather than being truly wild — is still being investigated, leaving already stunned Chicagoans with a lingering worry.

Last month in California, where run-ins with big cats are somewhat more common, the killing of a mountain lion by police was criticized as an overreaction.

But Chicagoans hardly seem comfortable with a big cat in their midst, especially Ben Greene, who was bathing his 10-month-old son when the police opened fire on the cougar outside his house: “Hypothetically, if there were kids in the yard and the cougar jumps in, what would the cougar have done?”

[Emily]

click for video, links, graphics, etc.:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... ory?page=1


Cougar killed on North Side may have wandered from Black Hills
By Rob Mitchum and Jeremy Manier | Tribune reporters
8:23 PM CDT, April 15, 2008

The voyage may sound improbable, but wildlife officials say that a DNA test should reveal whether a cougar killed Monday in Chicago took a 1,000-mile trip from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Wisconsin before being shot by police in the Roscoe Village neighborhood.

On Tuesday, veterinarians performed a necropsy, an autopsy for animals, on the cougar at the Cook County Animal and Rabies Control facility in Bridgeview. Early evidence indicated that the cougar was of wild origin, rather than an escaped captive, and samples were taken for comparison to blood that a cougar left in January in Milton, Wis.

DNA analysis suggested that the Wisconsin animal was most similar to those which live in South Dakota, and experts say it may be the same specimen that eventually strayed into the city.

"It's intriguing to think it may end up being the one that was here in Wisconsin," said Doug Fendry, an area wildlife supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.


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Cougar debate
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About cougars
ENCOUNTERING A COUGAR

- Pick up children immediately.

- Do not approach it. Give the cougar an avenue for escape.

- Do not run; this can trigger an attack.

- Back away without turning your back on it.

- Do all you can to look bigger. Don't hide or crouch down.

COUGAR FACTS

Habitat: Rocky canyons, tropical rain forests, prairies, deserts, forests

Range: North and South America

Length: 7-9 feet Weight: 80-230 pounds

Life span: 15-20 years

Diet: Deer, elk and small mammals

Sources: Lake County Health Department, ESRI, GDT

Wilmette put on cougar alert
A 'very big cat' is on the loose in North Chicago, authorities say


The unexpected visit fascinated researchers and put police officers in the unusual dilemma of balancing public safety with the beauty of an animal not seen in Chicago since the city's founding in the 19th Century.

Most wildlife experts who have dealt with the potentially dangerous animal, also known as a mountain lion, said it's difficult to criticize the Chicago Police Department's decision to shoot the cougar Monday evening, saying that such animals pose a threat to humans and are difficult to effectively tranquilize. "Determining what you have to do for public safety can be a gray area," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for California's Department of Fish and Game. "Mountain lions can be very difficult to tranquilize and then move."

Police defended the shooting Tuesday, saying that the decision to shoot the animal protected bystanders and was not out of line with their usual response to threatening animals.

"There's no time to waste when you have a predator, an animal like this," police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. "We shoot pit bulls who charge [at officers], so [would it make sense] to let the cougar charge?"

Mayor Richard Daley supported the police use of lethal force in a news conference Tuesday morning.

"Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they'd sue the city because the police officer didn't do their job," Daley said"I didn't see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, 'Oh I love you' and bring it in the house."

Although humans and cougars must live together in many parts of the country, it's extremely rare for them to meet in a densely populated urban area like Chicago, said biologist Alan Rabinowitz, a former researcher at the Bronx Zoo and president of the Panthera Foundation, which is dedicated to helping big cats and people co-exist.

But Monday's encounter pushed the limits of that idea.

"If you don't put an animal like this down fast, you are risking a person's life," Rabinowitz said.

The animal was shot by police shortly before 6 p.m. Monday in the 3400 block of North Hoyne Avenue, police said. Mark Rosenthal, operations manager for the Chicago Commmission on Animal Care and Control, said that a crew was en route to the neighborhood and not on the scene when the shooting occurred.

On Tuesday, officials at the Cook County Animal and Rabies Control sought to answer whether the cougar was wild or had escaped from captivity.

"He did not have any identifying marks as if he had been owned. He was a wild cat," said Donna Alexander, administrator of the agency. She cited the lack of a microchip tag or tattoo, and intact claws and teeth that would normally be removed by pet owners.

Further tests being conducted by a veterinarian from the University of Illinois will determine the age of the cat, and DNA samples taken from the cougar will be given to wildlife officials from other states to try and trace the animal's movements, Alexander said.

A young male cougar will roam away from the land of its birth almost by instinct, many experts said. That could be a reaction to the dangers of genetic inbreeding or of overcrowding.

Clay Nielsen, wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and director of scientific research with The Cougar Network, said that more and more cougars are wandering out of high cougar population areas like South Dakota into Midwestern areas that have not seen them for hundreds of years.

"It's gotten to the point where there's no space, and animals have to go outside of the Black Hills," Nielsen said.

Though the cougar spotted in Wisconsin had not caused any safety problems and Fendry had no reports of it killing domestic livestock, he understood the concern that led Chicago police to shoot the animal found in Roscoe Village.

"When an animal gets in a urban area and gets confused, it can respond aggressively," Fendry said. "Occasionally up here, we'll get a bear in an urban area and it will have to be destroyed."

Martarano said tranquilizing a cougar requires such specialized knowledge that California runs training sessions on the technique for biologists and wildlife wardens.

"It's hard to get close enough to get the dart in the right area," said Martarano, who said the darts have no effect if they hit a bone. "It takes a while for the drugs to take effect, and during that period the animal can get agitated. If a lot of people are around, that can cause problems in itself."


Video

Related links
Cops kill cougar on North Side
Cougar shot, killed on North Side Video
Police kill cougar Photos
Cougar sightings map
Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas - Terms of Use
View Detailed VersionReset Map
Cougar debate
Do you agree that police needed to kill the cougar?

Yes
No

View current results

About cougars
ENCOUNTERING A COUGAR

- Pick up children immediately.

- Do not approach it. Give the cougar an avenue for escape.

- Do not run; this can trigger an attack.

- Back away without turning your back on it.

- Do all you can to look bigger. Don't hide or crouch down.

COUGAR FACTS

Habitat: Rocky canyons, tropical rain forests, prairies, deserts, forests

Range: North and South America

Length: 7-9 feet Weight: 80-230 pounds

Life span: 15-20 years

Diet: Deer, elk and small mammals

Sources: Lake County Health Department, ESRI, GDT

Wilmette put on cougar alert
A 'very big cat' is on the loose in North Chicago, authorities say


Though California has the most cougars of any state with a population estimated between 4,000 and 6,000, attacks on humans are extremely rare. The state has recorded just 13 attacks since 1990, with three deaths.

"We have to learn to live with them. For the most part, I think we do a pretty good job," Martarano said.

Whether this week's cougar is the harbinger for more exotic animal visitors to Chicago or merely an anomaly remains to be seen.

But once all the tests have been performed, and the long trek of the cougar has been unraveled by wildlife experts, the cougar killed Monday may find its journey's end in the collection of the Field Museum, which has requested the skeleton.

"It's going to stay in Cook County," Alexander said.

Tribune reporter Angela Rozas contributed to this report.

rmitchum@tribune.com

jmanier@tribune.com

[Emily]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 2904.story

A cougar in the neighborhood: Beautiful animal, fearsome predator
By Barbara Brotman | Tribune staff reporter
2:23 PM CDT, April 15, 2008

Were police wrong to kill a cougar found in a residential neighborhood on the North Side?

Your opinion would depend on whether you had children outdoors in the neighborhood while a cougar, also known as a mountain lion, was loose.

Which a few years ago, I did.

My family and I were living for a year in Palo Alto, Calif. One morning I took my dog out for her constitutional and noticed an awful lot of animal control vans slowly driving around. A neighbor had once installed a petting zoo in his back yard for a child's birthday party, so I just figured they were investigating some California thing.




They were — sightings of a 108-pound male mountain lion.

Living in California had taught us a number of things about mountain lions. They were beautiful. They were unlucky to be living where people were encroaching on their habitat. And they were fearsome predators, capable of a 15-foot vertical leap and a 40-foot horizontal leap, that had in recent years killed a number of joggers and cyclists on California's glorious mountain paths.

The year we lived there, warning notices went up at the gates of the mountainous nature preserve where I walked regularly. They reported that mountain lions had been seen in the preserve, and gave instructions on how to avoid encountering them or being injured by one: Make noise as you walk. Don't walk alone. If you see a lion, back away slowly to avoid triggering its chase instinct. Do not crouch over, lest the cougar see you as small prey.

I sweated many a walk through that preserve, and not solely from exertion and heat.

So when a mountain lion showed up in our neighborhood, everyone knew it was a serious matter. Our daughter's middle school went on lockdown. Police searched yard by yard for the lion. People stayed indoors.

Our neighbor's dog, Kelsey, found it. The black Labrador chased the mountain lion up a tree, where it lay on a branch until police shot it.

The shooting prompted the same kind of reaction Chicago police are now facing. Critics argued that they should have tranquilized the mountain lion. Mourners made a little shrine next to the sidewalk, leaving cards, flowers and a photo of a female mountain lion with her cubs and the words, "Majestic Creature, Rest in Peace."

The resulting controversy included an education on tranquilizing large animals. Animal control officials, who had advised the Palo Alto police to kill the lion, said that a tranquilizer gun might have taken 30 minutes to work, leaving the lion injured and on the loose.

Even fatally injured, the lion walked along the sidewalk, leaving bloodstains that drove our dog wild for weeks.

"There's not a single warden on our force or police officer in Palo Alto that wants to kill a mountain lion in that situation, " a Department of Fish and Game official told the San Francisco Chronicle. "But the issue becomes the safety of the people."

My daughter and the other kids in three neighborhood schools were let out after it was all over.

Kelsey got a dinner of steak tips and Milk Bone biscuits that night.

I was sorry that a beautiful animal had been killed. But I was grateful, too.

bbrotman@tribune.com

[Emily]

http://www.associatedcontent.com/articl ... ntury.html

First Cougar Spotted in Over a Century Shot Dead in Northern Chicago

By Chas Bell, published Apr 15, 2008
Published Content: 90 Total Views: 7,420 Favorited By: 0 CPs
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A police offer shot and killed a mountain lion in the northern suburbs of Chicago today, according to various local media reports. The cougar was reported at over 5 feet in length with the ability to leap over a 6-foot fence. The cougar was shot dead and killed in an alley.

The cougar will now be checked for any markings and chips to make sure that it does not belong to somebody. This cougar may be the same cougar that has been spotted as far north as Milton, Wisconsin. If this is the same cougar, it's the first cougar to be spotted in Wisconsin in over one century.

As I read the local newspaper this morning, it brought a tear to my eye. I am from Janesville, Wisconsin and here in Wisconsin, we've been tracking a cougar in the area for quite some time. The last couple of months, people have reported seeing foot prints in their yards, located in Milton, Wisconsin. In the back of my mind I was praying for the cougar to be safe and to avoid being hit by a vehicle on the road. I would have never thought that this innocent animal would be shot down in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

Perhaps if I was in the same situation, I might have done the same thing. On the other hand, perhaps it was an overreaction from the police officer. Just because he had a gun and was capable of shooting the animal, doesn't mean this needed to be done. Spotting a mountain lion in this region is definitely something that will stir up news. Killing the first mountain lion to enter this territory in over one century, will stir up problems.

I have been encountered by large animals in the wild. I have come close to deer, coyotes and other large animals. If it would have come to the point that I felt my life was threatened, perhaps I would have used deadly force.
Growing up, the kids in my neighborhood used to walk around in the wood across from my home. We often times spotted coyotes and wildlife running through the woods. These animals were not running at us, they were running away from us. We knew that the animals were more scared of us than we were of the animal. We knew to avoid dangerous animals and never had any type of close encounter with large animals. It was the smaller animals that gave us problems. Perhaps this is because they felt threatened, being half of our size.

I have never had any close encounters with any large wild animals. I have had more problems with squirrels and raccoons than I have had with larger animals, such as deer. I have never been in a situation where my life was in jeopardy. As far as the mountain lion is concerned, we do not know where this animal came from or where it was trying to go. We have yet to determine if this animal is the same cougar spotted in Wisconsin and we are also unsure of the fact as to if this animal was a wild animal or one that escaped from captivity.

I'm sure that the police officer that shot this magnificent animal thought that he or she was doing the right thing. A police officer's job is to protect the public. That is exactly what the police officer did. Most of us wish there was a different alternative to capturing the animal. The problem with that is, this animal is very fast and hard to capture.

The damage is done. I'm sure we would all be more upset if the news for tomorrow's paper read, "Young Child Killed By Cougar."

[Emily]

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/new ... s/1372124/

Cougar killed in Chicago may have journeyed from South Dakota
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; Posted: 08:29 PM

Apr 15, 2008 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) -- -- The voyage may sound improbable, but wildlife officials say that a DNA test should reveal whether a cougar killed Monday in Chicago took a 1,000-mile trip from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Wisconsin before being shot by police in the Roscoe Village neighborhood.

On Tuesday, veterinarians performed a necropsy, an autopsy for animals, on the cougar at the Cook County Animal & Rabies Control facility in Bridgeview. Early evidence indicated that the cougar was of wild origin, rather than an escaped captive, and samples were taken for comparison to blood that a cougar left in January in Milton, Wis.

DNA analysis suggested that the Wisconsin animal was most similar to those who live in South Dakota, and experts say it may be the same specimen that eventually strayed into the city.

"It's intriguing to think it may end up being the one that was here in Wisconsin," said Doug Fendry, an area wildlife supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

The unexpected visit fascinated researchers and put police officers in the unusual dilemma of balancing public safety with the beauty of an animal not seen in Chicago since the city's founding in the 19th century.

Most wildlife experts who have dealt with the potentially dangerous animal, also known as a mountain lion, said it's difficult to criticize the Chicago Police Department's decision to shoot the cougar Monday evening, saying that such animals pose a threat to humans and are difficult to effectively tranquilize.

"Determining what you have to do for public safety can be a gray area," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for California's Department of Fish and Game. "Mountain lions can be very difficult to tranquilize and then move."

Police defended the shooting Tuesday, saying that the decision to shoot the animal protected innocent bystanders and was not out of line with their usual response to threatening animals.

"There's no time to waste when you have a predator, an animal like this," police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. "We shoot pit bulls who charge (at officers), so (would it make sense) to let the cougar charge?"

Mayor Richard Daley supported the police use of lethal force in a news conference Tuesday morning.

"Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they'd sue the city because the police officer didn't do their job," Daley said. "I didn't see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, `Oh I love you' and bring it in the house."

Although humans and cougars must live together in many parts of the country, it's extremely rare for them to meet in a densely populated urban area like Chicago, said biologist Alan Rabinowitz, a former researcher at the Bronx Zoo and president of the Panthera Foundation, which is dedicated to helping big cats and people co-exist.

But Monday's encounter pushed the limits of that idea.

"If you don't put an animal like this down fast, you are risking a person's life," Rabinowitz said.

The animal was shot by police shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, police said. Mark Rosenthal, operations manager for the Chicago Commmission on Animal Care & Control, said that a crew was en route to the neighborhood and not on the scene when the shooting occurred.

On Tuesday, officials at the Cook County Animal & Rabies Control sought to answer whether the cougar was wild or had escaped from captivity.

"He did not have any identifying marks as if he had been owned. He was a wild cat," said Donna Alexander, administrator of the agency. She cited the lack of a microchip tag or tattoo, and intact claws and teeth that would normally be removed by pet owners.

Further tests being conducted by a veterinarian from the University of Illinois will determine the age of the cat, and DNA samples taken from the cougar will be given to wildlife officials from other states to try and trace the animal's movements, Alexander said.

A young male cougar will roam away from the land of its birth almost by instinct, many experts said. That could be a reaction to the dangers of genetic inbreeding or of overcrowding.

Clay Nielsen, wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and director of scientific research with The Cougar Network, said that more and more cougars are wandering out of high cougar population areas like South Dakota into Midwestern areas that have not seen them for hundreds of years.

"It's gotten to the point where there's no space, and animals have to go outside of the Black Hills," Nielsen said.

Though the cougar spotted in Wisconsin had not caused any safety problems and Fendry had no reports of it killing domestic livestock, he understood the concern that led Chicago police to shoot the animal found in Roscoe Village.

"When an animal gets in a urban area and gets confused, it can respond aggressively," Fendry said. "Occasionally up here, we'll get a bear in an urban area and it will have to be destroyed."

Martarano said tranquilizing a cougar requires such specialized knowledge that California runs training sessions on the technique for biologists and wildlife wardens.

"It's hard to get close enough to get the dart in the right area," said Martarano, who said the darts have no effect if they hit a bone. "It takes a while for the drugs to take effect, and during that period the animal can get agitated. If a lot of people are around, that can cause problems in itself."

Though California has the most cougars of any state with a population estimated between 4,000 and 6,000, attacks on humans are extremely rare. The state has recorded just 13 attacks since 1990, with three deaths.

"We have to learn to live with them. For the most part, I think we do a pretty good job," Martarano said.

Whether this week's cougar is the harbinger for more exotic animal visitors to Chicago or merely an anomaly remains to be seen.

But once all the tests have been performed, and the long trek of the cougar has been unraveled by wildlife experts, the cougar killed Monday may find its journey's end in the collection of the Field Museum, which has requested the skeleton.

"It's going to stay in Cook County," Alexander said.

___

(Chicago Tribune reporter Angela Rozas contributed to this report.)