Post by Larry Koschkee on Jan 10, 2004 19:05:17 GMT -5
This weeks news of a mountain lion attack of a cyclist in Orange County, California reminds us that there are critters in our modern day environment that bite. For years special interest groups ('bleeding hearts') in the western states have lobbied state and federal authorities to place the mountain lion or cougar on a endangered species status. In many cases hunting or fair chase has been banned. More and more of our population is putting up houses in the countryside in prime lion habitat, thus more frequent human and lion encounters are being recorded. The cougar is gradually losing its fear of humans because of the ban on hunting and it has found that house cats, poodles and other small dogs are tasty. This is all a receipe for disaster.
Cougar sightings in Wisconsin are rare. To a large extent , however the WDNR is not convinced there is a wild population in the state on the one hand, but on the other hand I have recently learned the WDNR has a least four ongoing surveys that try to monitor cougars. These surveys reported 52 sightings in 2002. Most recent sightings were last fall. A cougar was spotted by several individuals in Sturgeon Bay, Door County in September and during the last week of October farmers in north-western Iowa County shot and killed one in a cornfield.
A few years ago, I interviewed a WDNR employee who observed a cougar in his driveway in rural north-east Grant County, WI. Personally, I find all these sightings fascinating for several reasons. Just to know these wild beautiful creatures are in the outdoors stirs my primal blood. To know that there is a chance to have a close encounter... step out into the night, for example, and capture the glare of a set of eyes in your lantern light. WOW! Would that not be a rush? The flora and fauna is part of the history research of Euro-american settlement in Wisconsin. What did they encounter on this frontier? In some respects it is as interesting as dates, people and places.
I have not researched extensively the cougar or panther in Wisconsin but I have done so with the wolf. I will say this though about the cougar summed up in the words of well reknown Wisconsin naturalist and historian, Dr. A. W. Schorger. There are so many records for Wisconsin that the species cannot have been especially rare in the early days. Also, a word from Dr. Hartley Jackson, who wrote the "bible" of "Mammals of Wisconsin. The puma probably was not rare in Wisconin in early days. The recent news of the mountain lion attack prompted me to dig out the wolf files and thought I would share some of it here, briefly, in this thread.
To what extent was the wolf in Wisconsin? One wildlife expert, Dr. Ernest Seton estimated, under primitive conditions, there was one timber wolf to two and one-half square miles. Dr. Hartley Jackson suggests there were 25,000 wolves at the beginning of Euro-american settlement. Both of these individuals were in agreement that the poplulation was concentrated in the lower half of the state because of their prey habitat, that of the white-tailed deer.
I interviewed Adrian Wydeven, WDNR Wildlife Specialist, and team leader for the wolf management program based at Park Falls, WI and his take on the pre-settlement or post-settlement time period is more conservative because some of the data others have based their information on is flawed. Some of the data is based on bounty records after Wisconsin placed a bounty on the wolf in 1839 and the scalps turned in by hunters and trappers were actually coyotes. His sense is simply... the wolf was abundant on the frontier and was a major concern for the settlers in the early days.
Cougar sightings in Wisconsin are rare. To a large extent , however the WDNR is not convinced there is a wild population in the state on the one hand, but on the other hand I have recently learned the WDNR has a least four ongoing surveys that try to monitor cougars. These surveys reported 52 sightings in 2002. Most recent sightings were last fall. A cougar was spotted by several individuals in Sturgeon Bay, Door County in September and during the last week of October farmers in north-western Iowa County shot and killed one in a cornfield.
A few years ago, I interviewed a WDNR employee who observed a cougar in his driveway in rural north-east Grant County, WI. Personally, I find all these sightings fascinating for several reasons. Just to know these wild beautiful creatures are in the outdoors stirs my primal blood. To know that there is a chance to have a close encounter... step out into the night, for example, and capture the glare of a set of eyes in your lantern light. WOW! Would that not be a rush? The flora and fauna is part of the history research of Euro-american settlement in Wisconsin. What did they encounter on this frontier? In some respects it is as interesting as dates, people and places.
I have not researched extensively the cougar or panther in Wisconsin but I have done so with the wolf. I will say this though about the cougar summed up in the words of well reknown Wisconsin naturalist and historian, Dr. A. W. Schorger. There are so many records for Wisconsin that the species cannot have been especially rare in the early days. Also, a word from Dr. Hartley Jackson, who wrote the "bible" of "Mammals of Wisconsin. The puma probably was not rare in Wisconin in early days. The recent news of the mountain lion attack prompted me to dig out the wolf files and thought I would share some of it here, briefly, in this thread.
To what extent was the wolf in Wisconsin? One wildlife expert, Dr. Ernest Seton estimated, under primitive conditions, there was one timber wolf to two and one-half square miles. Dr. Hartley Jackson suggests there were 25,000 wolves at the beginning of Euro-american settlement. Both of these individuals were in agreement that the poplulation was concentrated in the lower half of the state because of their prey habitat, that of the white-tailed deer.
I interviewed Adrian Wydeven, WDNR Wildlife Specialist, and team leader for the wolf management program based at Park Falls, WI and his take on the pre-settlement or post-settlement time period is more conservative because some of the data others have based their information on is flawed. Some of the data is based on bounty records after Wisconsin placed a bounty on the wolf in 1839 and the scalps turned in by hunters and trappers were actually coyotes. His sense is simply... the wolf was abundant on the frontier and was a major concern for the settlers in the early days.
