[FEL-L] Cougar killed, Chicago IL

[Gary Breuckman]

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.

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." 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 at tribune.com

jmanier at tribune.com