"HARTFORD, Conn. -- Wisconsin wildlife officials said DNA tests show a cougar that roamed Minnesota and Wisconsin was killed in a car crash in Connecticut last month.
The cougar apparently had walked halfway across the country from South Dakota.
Connecticut environmental officials said Tuesday the roughly 2,000-mile journey was one of the longest ever recorded for a land mammal. They said the animal originated in the Black Hills region of South Dakota and was tracked by DNA from its hair and droppings as it passed through Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2009 and 2010.
It was the first confirmed wild mountain lion in Connecticut in more than 100 years.
The lean, 140-pound male was killed by a car in the New Haven suburb of Milford on June 11.
Tests determined the cat was likely the same one that had been seen earlier in Greenwich, about 30 miles from New York City.
The cougar would have traveled 1,055 miles in a straight line, a new record for movement of a known cougar. However, biologists believe it walked roughly 2,000 miles, traveling through Canada and down through New York into Connecticut."
----Channel3000.com
Pretty interesting how little we really know about the movements of Cougars separating and looking for new territories. Who really knows how many of these large predators are roaming the state at any given time.
I fish a creek in Grant County and have seen a cougar there before. The owner of the land told me he had seen one before too. Which kind of freaked me out. People for some reason choose to not believe they are present but I am a firm believer. You ever walk along a creek and have the feeling your being watched?? Thanks for the news. Tight Lines.
ReplyDeleteCougars are cool animals, but not an animal i want to run into! My family owns land in Iowa county and one of our friends was hunting the land last year and said that he saw a cougar that passed only about 20 yards away, so there was no mistaking it's identity.
ReplyDeletevery cool yet overwhelmingly disturbing.
ReplyDeleteOh....the animal! I was thinking...nevermind
ReplyDelete