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Rural legends: Cougars roam southern Illinois
Posted: Friday, Dec 29, 2006 - 02:32:00 pm EST
By Tom Dunn - Register Staff Writer
 | | A familiar face to Little Egypt’s pioneers
Before felis concolor became extinct in Illinois well before the beginning of the 20th century, the big cat was known by a variety of names, including mountain lion, cougar and puma. Its most common name in 19th century southern Illinois was panther. Some residents of this region insist that it is here again. |
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Many levelheaded residents will swear that cougars now live in southern Illinois, while the powers that be will testify that if mountain lions are indeed in this region, then so are tigers and bears.
More than 150 cougar sightings have been reported in Illinois since 1950, according to the Eastern Puma Research Network, James Krohe Jr. writes in an essay that can be found online at http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/features/2004july/cougar.html.
Trustworthy, credible people have spotted cougars, and it couldn’t have been a coyote or a dog, right? In several instances, though, these “cougars” turned out to be just that.
Black cougar sightings provide the most outrageous examples of overactive imaginations, since a black, or melanistic, variety of the North American mountain lion has never been known to exist.
Another prevalent account is that of an inhuman “screaming,” invariably attributed to a cougar, although the sound more likely derives from a bobcat. Bobcats, while few and far between, are found in the area, and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources lists them as common in the state. Furthermore, a melanistic variety of the bobcat has been documented.
Humans want to believe in ‘the other’ — ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs — but in the case of cougars, the possibility is obviously more credible, because the creatures are undoubtedly real farther west in the U.S. At one time, felis concolor, commonly known by several names, including mountain lion, cougar and panther, resided throughout North America.
Also, animal ranges are not fixed. Armadillos have now officially marched into parts of southern Illinois. There is scientific, official confirmation that cougars have migrated back eastward over the past few decades, but the state of Illinois rejects the idea that they’re here now.
Some believers will even cite cougar tracks, proof that professional scientists will discredit as misidentified prints. Skeptics ask the hard questions: Where is cougar waste? Where are cougar remains? Granted, nature has a way of evaporating, so to speak, such hard forensic evidence, but why would professionals deny an animal’s existence?
Is it a conspiracy? A former Harrisburg resident, the late Virgil Smith, was so outspoken in his belief that cougars prowled southern Illinois by means of a secret introduction of the big cat by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources that it told him to either provide evidence or be quiet.
Don Price, building inspector for the City of Mt. Carmel, said that 30-some odd years ago, somebody in rural Wabash County reported seeing a cougar. Authorities, including the Mt. Carmel Police Department and the Wabash County Sheriff’s Department, hunted all over the county for it at the time, but found no evidence of a big cat.
Price said he is a skeptic, since such a large animal, however elusive, would leave a mark of its presence. “Bears are in Chicago,” he joked. “Lions are in Detroit.”
But Price’s story makes an important point: Authorities take these sightings seriously, and nothing has come out of them.
In Randolph County, which borders the Mississippi River, a cougar was hit by a train in 2000. Professionals from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale concluded that it was a wild animal of North American origin, living off the land and not a human hand. It was not a released pet from South America and, apparently, it was not an escaped zoo or circus exhibit either, which are explanations, along with misidenification, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources gives for cougar sightings.
If one cougar can make it across the Mississippi River, many think, then others can. Yet this isolated occurrence does not necessarily mean that southern Illinois has become an established habitat for Felis concolor.
Many, though, see this lone lion in southwestern Illinois as a harbinger of a southern Illinois to come, one that also once was, where human and lion lived together, and often not in harmony.
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