Cougars on the minds of many

And I thought this was just another normal Thursday. Turns out this is cougar Thursday. Big cats are in the news everywhere: Wisconsin, California and yes, even here in Illinois. On to the news.

First, just for future reference, here is what you are looking for folks. This is a paw print from a mountain lion found in Vista Park Hill in California.

Click here to read a story telling us that the big cat in southern Wisconsin was definitely a cougar based on DNA testing of blood left behind by the cat. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The Department of Natural Resources confirmed Tuesday that DNA tests concluded that a large cat seen leaping from a hayloft on Jan. 18 in Rock County was a cougar.

If it is determined to be wild, it would be the first evidence that cougars had returned to Wisconsin since the early 1900s.

Here is a link to an interesting Web site called Illinois Cougar Watch.com. There are plenty of entries from around Illinois, nice pictures and an easy to navigate layout. There’s also one big problem: They are actually taking seriously the e-mailed pictured of the big cat on the deck that some liar said were taken in Findlay. In an entry about the bogus e-mail, the site concludes: “Based on the above details, this sighting is inconclusive.”

Uh, wrong. Even the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, whose press releases have been declared an endangered species, came out with a news release to debunk the big cat shots.

Oh yeah, that release included this, to me, comical quote from Sam Flood, acting DNR director: “It is absolutely not true that the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is releasing cougars anywhere in the state for any reason.”

Of course they aren’t. For that matter, the Illinois DNR is not doing much of anything.