The cougar was accidentally tracked as it made its way from the Black Hills through mid-West and Canada to end up under the wheels of an SUV in Connecticut-
Connecticut Mountain Lion Traveled from South Dakota. The cougar’s 1,100-mile journey is the longest ever recorded. By Michael Dinan. The New Rochelle Patch
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides.
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Amazing to have traveled that far then meet its fate on a road, probably after crossing thousands of them…
My suggestion to folks who REALLY want to know what’s going on is to FOIA both the state of CT and the USFWS. My experience with wolves is that govt. officials have a tendency to overlook or put their own spin on important facts when issuing press releases. I strongly question whether this animal actually came from South Dakota/Minnesota, or was descended from cats that are naturally recolonizing the eastern U.S. from the west and mid-west. In any event, I told a USFWS biologist that I believed it was a wild cougar, based on the location killed and physical evidence, and he ridiculed me. I thought Obama was going to have his folks put science before politics????
Seems the cat was a frequent visitor to urban areas. My co-conspirators down in Wisconsin have been tracking this cat (and 3 others) some a little while now. Read the news release link below. So it is a wild cougar. It just had a hunkering for the bright lights. Very odd, indeed.
http://dnr.wi.gov/news/BreakingNews_Lookup.asp?id=2158