Cougar may have traveled 1000 miles

The Chicago Tribune today said that the young male cougar's DNA reads of "wild" South Dakota descent, and that it could have traveled over 1000 miles into Chicago where it was shot and killed by police. See the last three blog posts previously here. The cougar might have been the same one that was seen in Milton, Wisconsin, which is near the Illinois border. That cougar left blood behind, and so it will be very interesting to piece this 1000 mile journey together like a CSI investigator, should it be the same cat, which many experts say it is.

Google "chicago cougar dna" for a variety of posts on this topic
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This is something an extremely knowledgeable friend of mine gave permission to post here, in response to yesterday's blog suggestions:

"When reviewing public comments and suggestions from concerned citizens on wildlife issues I always found them useful. Unfortunately for certain species such as the big cats and Grizzly bears the human population growth and expansion spells trouble. These species are wilderness species.

Research studies have indicated that a couger has a home/hunting range of about 90 square miles (about 55,000 acres). Thats per couger! Thats why this type of species needs vast areas of wilderness. The Eastern US developed first and human population expanded removing the Eastern Cougers wilderness habitat. This is why the Eastern couger is endangered where as the Western populations of cougers are not (and still hunted). The West still has vast areas of wilderness and hopefully will remain that way. But that does nothing for the plight of the Eastern Couger. Its all about habitat for a viable population rather than the welfare of a single individual.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the Eastern cougers wilderness habitat cannot be brought back anymore than the fast praires for the millions of buffalo that onced roamed there. There are still pockets of wilderness in the Eastern states where cougers can still survive, however, where does a growing couger population go? Urban development meets couger expansion! The couger off-spring are pushed out of a limited wilderness territory already occupied by other cougers. Pushed, unfortunately, into your back yard setting up a classic human/wildlife conflict. You can't have them in your house and the other cougers won't have them in their house either! What do you do? Make more wilderness? "

Dave,
Refuge Manager (retired), US Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of National Wildlife Refuges.
http://www.grizzlymountainarts.com



I apologize for not knowing the source of these amazing cougar photos.


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Here is a recycled magazine vessel I made. Its in my etsy shop here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10701352



Its called "Mona" after the Mona Lisa (by Leonardo DaVinci).

Cougars in Northeastern Illinois

My very first blog. Ever. I thought today was a great day to do it because of the newspaper and TV news about cougar sitings in North Chicago, Illinois. Not too far from the third largest city in the US, a mountain lion, panther, or cougar, as Native Americans called them, was seen by several people yesterday in a highly inhabited suburban town. There were tracks in snow that have been identified by officials!

I have always loved wild animals. My name is Urban Woodswalker because I roam the 1000s of forest preserve acres near my home. White tail deer, Blue Herons, white egrets, red tail hawks, are just a few of the fauna I am lucky to see on a regular basis besides the usual gulls, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, and Gulls. Thrilling treats are to come across coyotes or beaver at work...but that seldom happens as both are usually quite shy of humans. A rare occurrence was the Peregrine Falcon that whooshed onto my balcony last month to capture and eat a bird at one of the bird feeders. WOW!

Cougars? They are migrating east ward again. I know that many states shoot and kill them when found in urban areas. The thought is that the cougar would have lost their fear of humans, and pose an extremely dangerous threat not only to pets, but to humans. Some states allow hunting cougar with a special permit. Yuck. I cannot imagine that at all - such a magnificent creature. Illinois is a state that does not have Cougars on the endangered species list because they say they don't exist here...even though there have been numerous sitings and even 2 dead ones found in the southern part of the state. If you read the links below you can learn much more about the cougar and how hums exterminated it in most of the eastern and midwestern states in the late 1800s.

I wish the cougar well. I hope it finds the rivers and forest preserves and can live a peaceful uninterrupted life there forever. Just leave it alone... :-)

Read all about the incident here:

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/news/867240,5_1_WA29_COUGAR_S1.article

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/features/2004july/cougar.html

HEAR a real live COUGAR Scream/Growl here:

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0WTbTiM8AFIulQBdAd82PAI?p=cougar+in+north+chicago&fr=my-myy-s&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

The pendant shown is made from a 1999 US postage stamp, and 2 recycled aluminum pull tabs. Its called the "Cougar Pendant" and is available for sale in my shop here:

http://urbanwoodswalker.etsy.com/

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