Mountain Lion South of Madison, WI!

If there were no one else willing to try and capture an angry mountain lion--I know I would shoot it long before I would try to pick it up and carry it to my squad car.
 
jesse said:
If there were no one else willing to try and capture an angry mountain lion--I know I would shoot it long before I would try to pick it up and carry it to my squad car.
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Cops, and if not, animal control have the noose on a stick things they use for stray dogs. I would think it would be a considerable challenge to catch a wild cougar with that.

They said that animal control was enroute, but I have a feeling they would have let the cops with the guns stand in front.

Just shooting guns in a dense urban alley is risk enough.

You have no idea of the density of that neighborhood. That's where the development got out of control and they put up 6-8(!) unit condos in the same space as one or two two-flats (2 small apartments). It used to take me 20-30 minutes just to drive the 2 miles to the expressway on a Saturday when I drove out here to the airport.
 
mikea said:
Cops, and if not, animal control have the noose on a stick things they use for stray dogs. I would think it would be a considerable challenge to catch a wild cougar with that.

They said that animal control was enroute, but I have a feeling they would have let the cops with the guns stand in front.

Just shooting guns in a dense urban alley is risk enough.

You have no idea of the density of that neighborhood. That's where the development got out of control and they put up 6-8(!) unit condos in the same space as one or two two-flats (2 small apartments). It used to take me 30 minutes just to get the expressway when I drove out here to the airport.
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Maybe so--but a ****ed off mountain lion is a threat to a dense area as well. You can pretty safely fire a shot with a little common sense There is a reason they carry hollow point rounds.
 
it would be a hand gun before it would be a stick with a noose attached to a mountain lion. THAT is for damn sure. Tranq, yeah, my first choice, be we ain't gonna be stupid about it or anything... :no:
 
Just my opinion but why were they effing with it in the first place?

Like the people in my former life who would dial 911 because a deer had "escaped" into their back yard expecting the police would move it back into its "habitat."
 
alaskaflyer said:
Just my opinion but why were they effing with it in the first place?

Like the people in my former life who would dial 911 because a deer had "escaped" into their back yard expecting the police would move it back into its "habitat."
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Yeah. I actually did that once when we saw a huge buck cross a busy main drag in a close in burb. We flagged down a cop car and told them.

A lion is bit a different story though.
 
My somewhat-obscured point was that anywhere you find or found whitetail deer in America, you would have once found the mountain lion. Including what is now Chicago. As deer begin to repopulate their former habitat (turning it into simply "habitat") then the lions will come.

I for one am glad to see it. Americans need a little more excitement. Not having been at the top of the foodchain since, oh, well, 1998, I can share with you that going through that transition can be a liberating and wonderful experience :cheerswine: ;)

People up here live with bears, wolves and a little further south lions cruising their yards all the time. Children aren't exactly being carried off in droves. Urbanites (I am a former one myself) just need to get used to the fact that just because you pave it over doesn't mean you aren't still in the wilderness (cue photo of coyote in downtown LA.)

If I had been next to that police officer as he raised his shotgun (pistol whatever) I would have given him a smack. Unless of course the lion was chasing me.
 
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alaskaflyer said:
My somewhat-obscured point was that anywhere you find or found whitetail deer in America, you would have once found the mountain lion. Including what is now Chicago. As deer begin to repopulate their former habitat (turning it into simply "habitat") then the lions will come.

I for one am glad to see it. Americans need a little more excitement. Not having been at the top of the foodchain since, oh, well, 1998, I can share with you that going through that transition can be a liberating and wonderful experience :cheerswine: ;)

People up here live with bears, wolves and a little further south lions cruising their yards all the time. Children aren't exactly being carried off in droves. Urbanites (I am a former one myself) just need to get used to the fact that just because you pave it over doesn't mean you aren't still in the wilderness (cue photo of coyote in downtown LA.)

If I had been next to that police officer as he raised his shotgun (pistol whatever) I would have given him a smack. Unless of course the lion was chasing me.
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Absolutely agree with all of the above. These animals aren't as dangerous as city dwellers think. They are typically shy and VERY AFRAID OF YOU. Unless they are rabid, they won't bother you. That being said Moutain Lions do occassinally attack people. I think they should have tranquilized the little kitty and relocated him.
 
mikea said:
Cops, and if not, animal control have the noose on a stick things they use for stray dogs. I would think it would be a considerable challenge to catch a wild cougar with that.

They said that animal control was enroute, but I have a feeling they would have let the cops with the guns stand in front.

Just shooting guns in a dense urban alley is risk enough.

You have no idea of the density of that neighborhood. That's where the development got out of control and they put up 6-8(!) unit condos in the same space as one or two two-flats (2 small apartments). It used to take me 20-30 minutes just to drive the 2 miles to the expressway on a Saturday when I drove out here to the airport.
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All of this I agree with, it is jsut too bad the poor thing got killed. It looks like this is also the same cat that was up in Milton a few weeks ago. That means it likely passed very close to your and mine's house on it's way into the city.
 
jesse said:
Maybe so--but a ****ed off mountain lion is a threat to a dense area as well. You can pretty safely fire a shot with a little common sense There is a reason they carry hollow point rounds.
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They fired 18 BTW. I think they went a little over board and Chicago cops are known to do.
 
alaskaflyer said:
My somewhat-obscured point was that anywhere you find or found whitetail deer in America, you would have once found the mountain lion. Including what is now Chicago. As deer begin to repopulate their former habitat (turning it into simply "habitat") then the lions will come.

I for one am glad to see it. Americans need a little more excitement. Not having been at the top of the foodchain since, oh, well, 1998, I can share with you that going through that transition can be a liberating and wonderful experience :cheerswine: ;)

People up here live with bears, wolves and a little further south lions cruising their yards all the time. Children aren't exactly being carried off in droves. Urbanites (I am a former one myself) just need to get used to the fact that just because you pave it over doesn't mean you aren't still in the wilderness (cue photo of coyote in downtown LA.)

If I had been next to that police officer as he raised his shotgun (pistol whatever) I would have given him a smack. Unless of course the lion was chasing me.
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I have had the experience of not being at the top of the food chain several times and it is a humbling experience, make you rethink your place in the whole universe.

Anthony said:
Absolutely agree with all of the above. These animals aren't as dangerous as city dwellers think. They are typically shy and VERY AFRAID OF YOU. Unless they are rabid, they won't bother you. That being said Moutain Lions do occassinally attack people. I think they should have tranquilized the little kitty and relocated him.
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Most of the time that is true. But not always. I was staying with friends near Anacortes, WA. I went to go outside to my car and they told me to be careful and watch out for bears and lions. I laughed but also knew they were around, so I made lots of noise and did not see anything. When I got back into the house I was shown the pictures of the mountain lion that had come the week earlier, climbed on top of the picnic table and fell asleep only to be photographed and then woken up. When they woke it up by making lots of noise it just looked ****ed off, stretched jumped down and quietly walked away. That made me think about going out at night!!
 
alaskaflyer said:
Scott what kind of cat is that in your photos?
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Siberian Lynx

Her name is Natasha and she was rescued from a fur farm. She had been poisoned and it was a long recovery for her. But for some reason she has forgiven the humans that tire dot kill her and instead chooses to see us as friendly.

Even so it was an interesting feeling walking into her cage, and getting that close. I really wanted to bury my face into her fur, she was so soft and sweet. But I knew she was still a wild animal and should not be messed with
 
The scar on my right hand from messing with a Cougar kitten a number of years ago has faded, but he sure was a playful character. And, lest you think I'm kidding, this was at the veterinary school at Washington State University where my dad was on the faculty for 30 years. And, back when the WSU Cougars had a live mascot, he was his veterinarian. The vet students took care of Butch and fed and played with him daily. He'd be taken to football games in a portable cage. I remember reaching through the bars and scratching him behind the ears. Just leaned into it like any other cat I've known. But, he'd been in captivity since he was a kitten. Not so with that cat in Chicago...

Now, at the top of the food chain in other places, you run into these characters. I'll stay in the truck and take pictures from a distance, thank you very much!
 

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Cool pics where were they taken?

Have you been to the night zoo in Singapore?? The set up are such that you feel like you are in the enclosures with the cats and they are very active at night. All is dimly lit. You are in a open electric cart watching. What really creeps you out is that there are deer and other animals about and they can and do come up to you. Mostly form behind and bump into you. Freaks you out if are looking at a big cat.
 
smigaldi said:
Cool pics where were they taken?

Have you been to the night zoo in Singapore?? The set up are such that you feel like you are in the enclosures with the cats and they are very active at night. All is dimly lit. You are in a open electric cart watching. What really creeps you out is that there are deer and other animals about and they can and do come up to you. Mostly form behind and bump into you. Freaks you out if are looking at a big cat.
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Kruger National Park, South Africa in October 2005. I had CISPR meetings in Cape Town and my wife and I flew up to Johannesburg and got picked up for a 4 day safari at the park. Would I do it again? At the drop of a hat. Absolutely fabulous.

Haven't been to the zoo in Singapore. I've had meetings there once, otherwise it's just been a place to change planes. And the trip there was a "leave SEA on Monday afternoon, get back to SEA on Friday afternoon with two days of meetings in Singapore in between" type of trip. You know the kind. :P
 
Ghery said:
Haven't been to the zoo in Singapore. I've had meetings there once, otherwise it's just been a place to change planes. And the trip there was a "leave SEA on Monday afternoon, get back to SEA on Friday afternoon with two days of meetings in Singapore in between" type of trip. You know the kind. :P
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I do know what you mean. At one time I based out of Singapore for south east Asia stuff. SO I would fly in spend a day or two, go to KL or JB, come back, go to Jakarta, come back, spend a few day, etc. I got to know the place pretty well and tried to get an ex-pat assignment there.

The visit to the night zoo though was the evening social event at an IEEE plenary hosted by Singapore Telecom.
 
Ghery said:
Got to love some of those IEEE evening social events. Sounds like that was a good one.
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Better than a lot! The expensive hotel beer and bad 'horse dovers' are to be avoided at all costs. The 802 plenaries are normally the latter. 802.16 does interims without the other WGs and we get some good ones.
 
It looks like that late cougar's sibling is still up in Skokie.

Searchers swooped low over the Skokie Lagoons in a helicopter today to look for signs of a cougar after several reported sightings of a big cat there -- including a sighting Tuesday, a day after a 2-year-old cougar was shot by police in Chicago.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/897930,cougar041608.article
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Could be the Wilmette one, or maybe it's a large family.

The report was they were going to compare a blood sample found in Wisconisn to the dead cat's.

Maybe we'll see them on the Johnny Cougar version of Maury, "You ARE the father!"
 
editcartoon-013108.jpg_20080131_11_08_05_32-0-0.imageContent
 
A security guard at Abbott reported (another) Cougar last Friday (?) at 43 and 137 -- lots of woods there and certainly not far from the North Chicago sightings...
 
955 said:
A security guard at Abbott reported (another) Cougar last Friday (?) at 43 and 137 -- lots of woods there and certainly not far from the North Chicago sightings...
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smigaldi said:
I wondering if some of these are just bobcats or even the very common coyotes
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What's funny is everybody not believing these reports even after the Chicago cops have an actual carcass to prove an actual cougar was there.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/brown/896822,CST-NWS-brown16.article
 
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mikea said:
What's funny is everybody not believing these reports even after the Chicago cops have an actual carcass to prove an actaul cougar was there.
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I think Alaskaflyer is right. Anywhere you find Whitetails you'll find the big cats. And Whitetails are practically EVERYWHERE. We just don't see the big cats as much because:

A. They are nocturnal
B. They are shy of humans
 
Wow. That almost doesn't surprise me.

If you look at the terrain and amount of open area between Rock County and Cook County, track the sightings, and realize how many deer and critters there are to eat....

What makes me amazed is how it got that far before it ran afoul of someone.
 
smigaldi said:
I read last month that a mountain lion aka cougar had been sighted south of Madison, WI in the town of Milton. That is just north of the KJVL airport BTW. I am very excited to hear that these wonderful big cats are thriving once again, and a little afraid to go bike riding on the trail up there.

Genetic testing was done of some blood that was found near some of the tracks and it has confirmed that this is not someone's pet that got out of the yard it is a real wild mountain lion!!


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ap-wi-cougarsightings,1,1316979.story
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They are absolutely gorgeous animals. When I had the ranch in TX it was wedged between a 30,000 and 42,000 acre ranch, and we would all have a few losses to a mountain lion. We all decided to post our places "No Hunting" to give hin/her a safe territory. We all felt it was worth a few animal a year to get a glimpse of he every now and then. We had a big rock on the top of our property and every now and then, I'd see her (I always called it "her") sunning herself on top. Just a beautiful animal.
 
Anthony said:
I think Alaskaflyer is right. Anywhere you find Whitetails you'll find the big cats. And Whitetails are practically EVERYWHERE. We just don't see the big cats as much because:

A. They are nocturnal
B. They are shy of humans
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And they are Apex predators and masters of stalking.
 
mikea said:
Now the FBI is investigating an arson fire near duh mare's summer home thinking it was revenge for the kitty:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/953616,arson051608.article

Nobody did dat after Meigs.
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955 said:
Animal lovers may be a tad more likely to react to this than a pilot....
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In his first public comments about a letter sent to his office from someone who may have tried to torch his Michigan vacation house, Mayor Richard Daley described the correspondence as "personal" and "very, very vicious."

...

Daley has a security detail while he is home in Chicago. His office declined to comment Saturday about possible changes to his security detail.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-daley-letter_both_18may18,0,172812.story
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Funny thing. I once right before Christmas happened to walk by city hall as Duh Mare came out. I walked slightly behind him as he walked east toward Marshall Fields. There was one guy in suit walking with him. He could have been a bodyguard but the guy was more than middle aged and didn't look like a cop. The cops along the way directing traffic didn't even notice it was him. :dunno:
 
Just saw a bobcat across the street from my house. I ran to get my camera but only got this shot of him. I'll bet this is one of the mistaken mountain lions that have been reported around here. While one 'mountain lion' was really found the rest of the reports are most likely these guys.
 

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