[FEL-L] Police shoot cougar in Chicago alley

[Gary Breuckman]

Cops kill cougar on North Side
Neighborhood stunned as animal cornered, shot in back alley
By Jeremy Manier and Tina Shah | Tribune reporters
April 15, 2008

A cougar ran loose in Chicago on Monday for the first time since the
city's founding in the 19th Century. But by day's end, the animal lay
dead in a back alley on the North Side, shot by police who said they
feared it was turning to attack.

No one knew where the 150-pound cat came from, though on Saturday
Wilmette police had received four reports of a cougar roaming that
suburb, roughly 15 miles from the site of Monday's shooting.

Whatever its origin, the 5-foot-long cougar's unlikely journey ended
in the Roscoe Village neighborhood, where residents reported
sightings throughout the day to the Chicago Commission on Animal Care
and Control. Resident Ben Greene said police cornered the cougar
shortly before 6 p.m. in his side yard on the 3400 block of North
Hoyne Avenue.

Greene said he heard a volley of gunfire as he was bathing his
10-month-old son. His wife, Kate, ran upstairs screaming with their
3-year-old son, and they all took cover in a back room.

"At first, I'm thinking there's a gun battle in the street," said
Greene, who owns a trucking company.

As the shots stopped, Greene heard the police yelling, "We got him!
We got him!" He ventured downstairs and moved on his knees to the
front door, where he saw police on his 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 the alley near Greene's
garage.

Chicago Police Capt. Mike Ryan said the cougar tried to attack the
officers when they tried to contain it. Police said they could not
tranquilize the animal because police officers typically do not carry
tranquilizer guns. Police said no one, including officers, was hurt
and they did not know the cougar's gender.

"It was turning on the officers," Ryan said. "There was no way to
take it into custody."

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

Two cougars have been killed in Illinois in the last decade. In 2000,
a train struck and killed one in Randolph County in southern
Illinois, and in 2004 a bow hunter killed a cougar in Mercer County
in western Illinois.

But in the previous century, there had been no confirmed sightings in
Illinois of a cougar, which is also known as a puma, mountain lion or
panther. The last known appearance of the animal was in 1864 at the
southern end of the state.

The Wilmette and Chicago sightings capped a flurry of recent cougar
activity in the area, though no one knows if that was all the same
animal. Several people reported seeing a cougar at the end of March
in North Chicago, about 20 miles north of Wilmette. A Wisconsin
trapper came face to face with a cougar in January, about 25 miles
from the Illinois border.

That trapper said the cat bounded away 12 feet at a leap.

Starting early Monday, frightened Roscoe Village residents began
calling police with reports of a cougar which was bounding over high
fences in the neighborhood. Greene said his wife got an e-mail alert
about the animal Monday morning through a neighborhood watch list.

Frank Hirschmann, 50, of the 3500 block of North Seeley Avenue saw
the animal pass by his home.

"I was sitting on the porch, and all of a sudden he crossed the
street, and hurdled a 6-foot fence like nothing," Hirschmann said. He
said he then ran into his house and watched police chase the cougar
on foot.

Animal control officials were not sure if the cougar was wild or an
escaped pet, though they noted that it is illegal to keep the animals
as pets. It's unclear how a cougar could have traveled south into
Chicago from Wilmette, but the areas are connected by a Metra train
route, on which the cougar could have walked, and a waterway.

Ben Greene's neighbor, Romeo Dorazio, had just gotten home from
dinner when he heard about 10 gunshots.

"I knew it was really nearby. I walked to the window and saw a
cougar," Dorazio said. "It was the freakiest thing I ever saw."

James Reynolds was sitting in his living room when he heard what
seemed like "fireworks popping."

The 45-year-old went out in his back yard and saw a cougar attempting
to jump from his neighbor's fence to his. He knew it was a cougar
because he had seen it on the Discovery Channel, he said.

Officers shouted for him to go inside his house, and he saw them kill
the cougar in about 10 shots.

A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said
Monday that the state's current wildlife code does not protect
cougars because they are not considered a normal part of the
ecosystem here. The official said the only state regulations that
might come into play would be gun ordinances, but because police did
the shooting that issue is moot. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
lists the Eastern cougar as endangered. But police could not confirm
whether the cougar shot Monday was an Eastern cougar.

Greene said he agreed with the police decision to kill the cougar.

"As far as I witnessed, they did a pretty good job," Greene said.
"Hypothetically, if there were kids in the yard and the cougar jumps
in, what would the cougar have done?"

Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed to this report.

jmanier at tribune.com

tshah at tribune.com