Panther, Puma, Cougar, Mountain Lion - What's in a Name? A Cat by any other...
Posted on 08/20/2018 7:52:30 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
On March 21 Mary Jo Schnell was at Burnidge Forest Preserve along Coombs Road when she found a string of paw prints 3 inches wide...
The Elgin-area reports started at Thanksgiving time in 2008. Deer hunter Pat Crawford had set up a motion-activated trail camera in the back woods of Charles MacArthur's tree nursery along Plank Road west of Route 20. When he checked the film, he discovered one smudgy, underexposed picture of a beefy, catlike animal.
Another caller said he had been driving to work and had seen the corpse of a large brown animal along Route 47 on the Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm property. "And it wasn't a deer," he added emphatically.
The photographer and I raced over.
We found one of the goriest sights I've ever beheld. Yes, it was a white-tailed deer, or about half of one. But the chewed-up, disemboweled corpse did tie into our mystery. A trail of blood and matted fur led for 10 or 20 feet from the edge of the highway to where the deer now lay. The deer probably had been hit by a passing car. Then something strong enough pulled the full-grown doe's body for 10 or 20 feet...
If a cougar has been haunting the Burnidge preserve, it could be the same one that started showing up in Milwaukee a couple weeks ago. The experts note that cougars wander far and they wander wide, looking for a mate and a good hunting ground. And around here, mates are probably tough to find if you're brown, furry and 7 feet long.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
One has been spotted and confirmed by game cameras in Bloomingdale this year.
L
Panther, Puma, Cougar, Mountain Lion - What's in a Name? A Cat by any other...
YES!
I had forgotten.
Also a different one (?), a few years before that one.
Also might explain the downturn in the coon, possum and skunk population?
Texas cats/puma are 7 feet long because of the tail. They are tiny around here.
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Same mother, different brother?
I think they are the largest of the feline family members that purrs.
Almost hit one, in a rainstorm in Tennesee.
Nose to rump was nearly the width of my Ford Expedition.
And I had an all too close of a look at it.
LOL!
I’ve actually got two (little) cats that I’m sure are ‘brothers from different fathers’ - Superfecundation. ;-)
I think there’s actually been at least one lawsuit over the fact that it’s happened in humans, too...
(My favorite Blake is about seeing ‘a World in a Grain of Sand’...)
About 15 yrs ago western Mercer Co. IL was the end of a cougar. Someone had killed it bow hunting but I guess didn’t know that he hit it. Other hunters discovered the rotting cat. I lived maybe 15 or so miles from the site.
From 2004-07, Plank road was my favorite way to and from the northwest suburbs when hauling various grades of bulk golf course sand from Muscatine, IA. Especially liked the Schaumburg and Elgin deliveries..... not very deep into the cities,.... kick off the load and get out of town. Delivering to Golf C. C., in the village of Golf, on Golf Road was farther in. This country boy was always glad to get the big truck out of the big city and unwind westbound on Plank road.
I believe you are correct.
When I lived at the farm, I heard one. I got chills. Not spooky chills, the ones you get from excitement. I was in awe. I have seen one cross the road not far from there, really neat. I think more have seen me than I have seen them.
Missouri Conservation Dept had a picture of a young mountain lion in central Missouri last year from a trail cam from a guy. Lots of game and heavy timber. If you’re a cat what’s not to like. Long as the food supply is good a mate is the only reason to move. More people should put up trail cams, lots of people will be surprised what they see.
Yes, gamecams are fun. I have a pic somewhere of a pair of otters walking by a feeder at the farm.
People think “I live in a too populated area to get any worthwhile pictures”. They don’t put them up and miss the passerby cruising through at night. It a shame because it’s really interesting.
They’re around in Eastern Pennsylvania from time to time. I’ve seen one (1969), and seen tracks of another (2008). Absolutely unmistakable. My neighbor saw the 2008 one, it ran in to him escaping the guy’s shed.
Full disclosure: I think I saw a mountain troll down in the Philadelphia Reading Terminal in the mid 70’s. He had the proportions of a dwarf, but he was way over six feet tall — he must have weighed 500lb. No one else in the crowd seemed to notice him. He was dressed like a person. That’s pretty much the only thing I remember from the 70’s.
“Also might explain the downturn in the coon, possum and skunk population?”
It sure would.
L
Panther:
Puma:
There have long been legends of a big cat population in Britain; Loren Coleman and others have written about them:
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161208-many-people-are-convinced-that-big-cats-roam-the-uk
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