True. According to the Chicago Tribune, police shot and killed a 150-pound cougar in an alley in the Chicago neighborhood of Roscoe Village Monday night. The shooting capped two weeks of scattered cougar sightings around North Side Chicago and nearby Wilmette. No one knows whether all the reported sightings were of the same animal, nor where the mountain lion felled by the police may have come from.
The incident occurred just two months after the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources issued a statement debunking false Internet rumors about cougar sightings in the state. “While it is not completely impossible for a cougar to be found in Illinois," Acting IDNR Director Sam Flood said at the time, "sighting of a wild one is highly unlikely. Wild cougars have been found in neighboring states but again, very, very rarely.”
Prior to this month, the last verified cougar sightings in Illinois occurred in Mercer and Randolph Counties in 2004 and 2000, respectively. In both cases the big cats were already dead when encountered. Prior to that, no confirmed mountain lion sightings had been recorded in the state since 1862.
Update:
Cougar Came from Wisconsin, Biologists Say - Urban Legends Blog
Read more about it:
• Cops Gun Down Cougar in Chicago - Chicago Sun-Times
• Cougar Shot, Killed in Roscoe Village - MSNBC
• Cops Kill Cougar on North Side - Chicago Tribune
• Slaying of Cougar Justified, Experts Say - Chicago Tribune
• Are Big Cats Back on Midwestern Prowl? - Chicago Tribune
• The Cougar on the Porch - Urban Legends
• Illinois DNR Debunks Cougar Claim Prairie State Outdoors
Discuss it.
The incident occurred just two months after the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources issued a statement debunking false Internet rumors about cougar sightings in the state. “While it is not completely impossible for a cougar to be found in Illinois," Acting IDNR Director Sam Flood said at the time, "sighting of a wild one is highly unlikely. Wild cougars have been found in neighboring states but again, very, very rarely.”
Prior to this month, the last verified cougar sightings in Illinois occurred in Mercer and Randolph Counties in 2004 and 2000, respectively. In both cases the big cats were already dead when encountered. Prior to that, no confirmed mountain lion sightings had been recorded in the state since 1862.
Update:
Cougar Came from Wisconsin, Biologists Say - Urban Legends Blog
Read more about it:
• Cops Gun Down Cougar in Chicago - Chicago Sun-Times
• Cougar Shot, Killed in Roscoe Village - MSNBC
• Cops Kill Cougar on North Side - Chicago Tribune
• Slaying of Cougar Justified, Experts Say - Chicago Tribune
• Are Big Cats Back on Midwestern Prowl? - Chicago Tribune
• The Cougar on the Porch - Urban Legends
• Illinois DNR Debunks Cougar Claim Prairie State Outdoors
Discuss it.
Comments
FYI to David Emery,
You obviously aren’t from Chicago. “Roscoe Village” is NOT a suburb of Chicago. It is the neighborhood on the north side of Chicago on Roscoe Street between Damen and Western Avenues. Please correct your story.
Regards from a Cubs fan.
Point taken, correction made. Go Cubs!
I guess if you’re from Chicago, specifically Roscoe Village, it may make a difference how your location is referenced. The bigger point, I believe, is that a cougar (aka – MOUNTAIN LION) was shot and killed anywhere in, near or around CHICAGO, for Pete’s Sake! Let’s get our priorities straight! City folk do NOT expect to have to hide in their brownstones from Big Cats!
Is anything being done to learn where this mountain lion came from? Did it escape from captivity somewhere?
Since he got caught, and was slinking around in an alley, he was probably a politician.
I wonder why the police did not make any effort to contact Wildlife Conservation officials to possibly tranquilize & relocate this cat? I understand that neighbors did not want it around their children, but the animal did not appear aggressive & seemed to be trying to hide from all the commotion. For the police to shoot the animal 10 times seems like overkill. It’s too bad that beautiful cat was not captured & released back into the wild, in a more appropriate location.
You are so right, Pam, and if I were the DEP I’d be asking that same question.
Yeah Pam, that’s why the mountain lions are here… “Relocation” they are catching them in California and various western states and dumping them in Illinois… If a mountain lion hadn’t been in Illinois for over 100 years, and all of the sudden there is one, then that is a key indicator of human intervention.