Researchers theorize cougars are inhabiting the Midwest again following a "stepping stone" dispersal pattern - moving out of a dense population, stopping at the closest patch of available habitat and examining it for mates and prey before moving on....Here's the Wisconsin DNR website showing where mountain lions have been sighted in Wisconsin.
But at times, the predators have drifted into populated areas. Police in Santa Monica, Calif., last month killed a 95-pound mountain lion that roamed into a downtown area - the first such sighting in that city in more than three decades - and Chicago police in 2008 shot and killed a 150-pound cougar in an alley on the city's north side. That cat had earlier passed through Wisconsin.
June 14, 2012
"For those who are excited about the notion of living with large carnivores, this is great."
Mountain lions in Wisconsin (and throughout the midwest).
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24 comments:
A friend of mine in a small town nearby - college city suburb - saw a black bear in his backyard.
He sensibly borrowed both my 30-06 hunting rifle and my Mossy loaded with deer slugs.
Better to lose a rifle to the DNR people than to have even a small bear decide your house is a larder.
-XC
Madison is full of man eating cougars.
I spotted one in Door County while on a run in 2008. Contacted DNR. They did not find it credible. Next week, cougar shoot in Chicago.
If he/she wants a deer, he/she is going to have to pay for a hunting spot on private land (now that Walker is gov).
The point has been made that these are dispersing young males traveling hundreds of miles from home. A resident population will arrive much more slowly, if at all, because females will be required and they won't make such a big journey. Is there stepping-stone habitat for females between the Black Hills and Wisconsin?
The DNR is slow to admit the presence of predatory large mammals in northern Wisconsin. I contacted them two winters ago when I found fresh cougar prints at my cabin in Vilas County. The DNR guy looked at them and said that unless he saw the actual animal making the print, he couldn't confirm that a cougar had been in the area.
The DNR also denied that there were wolves in our area until a hunter who lives one lake west of ours video'd a small pack at his bear baiting station.
Is there stepping-stone habitat for females between the Black Hills and Wisconsin?
The University of Minnesota.
Bill McKibben told me we had seen the end of nature. Someone tell the mountain lions and the wolves. It's going to make Bill look bad.
As long as they stay out of NE OH...
Hubby and The Little Guy are going to Camp Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan, just south of Crandon (the March 2012 sighting)in three weeks for a week of Boy Scout Camp.
The DNR in Missouri denied for years that there were any mountain lions in the state. They knew that there were lions here and they knew much more. They knew how many and where they were.
The reason that they knew is that they brought them here and released them.
This wasn't done by the DNR officially but by DNR employees. They deny this, of course, but the eco loons who populate state agencies did the deed on their own and in such a way as to maintain deniability.
The last denial that lions were here came only days before a mountain lion turned up as road kill in Callaway County. They can't deny that they're here any longer so they just say that they're passing through or that nobody knows how many there are. Mostly they say nothing.
Mountain lions are the only predators that ever lived in North America with humans who will hunt people for food. Our ancestors had better sense than to live with them. Our masters in the DNR see no shortage of people and discount the danger of the odd lion attack. So far there have been none here.
California is a different story. A woman who was killed and partly eaten there was survived by a couple of children. The mountain lion, which was killed later, was survived by a couple of cubs. Fund raising efforts were launched on behalf of both. Guess which survivors raised the most money.
I love those big cats.
RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
here kitty kitty kitty
RAWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I'd like to see that guy from Oregon take a mouse from this cat's mouth.
They are not uncommon at all here. We often see the tracks in the winter snow in the driveway.
An elderly lady (about 80) shot one in her chicken house a couple of years ago. She heard the commotion, thought it was a fox or something, opened the door to the coop and came face to face with the lion. Good thing she had her shotgun (with plug removed) and unloaded on it.
Last March someone ran into one at night on one of the smaller roads. Killed it and messed up the front of their car.
I do not go outside at night unarmed and without a strong flashlight. If the cat doesn't come in by dark...she is on her own.
Just don't go running on trails by yourself at dawn or dusk.
Coyotes and foxes are definitely adapting better and expanding out too. There is a coyote population in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (I've seen a few when driving through at night). The crazy thing is that these coyotes aren't related to ones down on the peninsula, but to ones in Marin county. In other words, they somehow crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. :0
Ah, which animal loving Madisonite will be the first to go? Will it be jogger or mountain biker? They love both, you know and are very good at bringing fown and eating pretty large humanoids. Male and female.
How many more will die before we decide that "collecting evidence" is a criminally lame response to 130-pound killers roaming our cities?
BTW, shocking about Missouri and their lies. Well, not really, considering Fish and GAme folks here are all brainwashed too. A friend called them one day and said, "there's a big coyote at the mailbox and it's noon." They yelled back, "he was here first!"
PatCA - these big cats deserve our admiration and a treat.
"Illinois has had three confirmations, the most recent one in early 2008 being the most extraordinary — a cougar shot in Chicago! DNA analysis said this was the same cat that had been confirmed earlier in southeast Wisconsin."
link
Anyone remember this one? My daughter was stationed in Great Lakes when this happened. Sailors out PT'ing saw it before it was shot. Too bad they couldn't have captured it instead, or used a tranquilizer gun.
Just checked the DNR link, yup, it's there.
Hey! Has anybody seen my calico cat?? It's missing!
The local media thrives on cougars, and bears caught on surveillance cameras at the strip mall.
Ah, I see this 2008 incident is mentioned in the blog post.
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