It was probably not a Wisconsin native. Cougars no longer live in Wisconsin. They are sometimes seen there, however, says the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) on their web site.The big cats get around. Sometimes it's because they are displaced by development, sometimes they are in search of a mate. Like wolves, they are territorial and sometimes drive members of their own species out of an area to protect their own hunting ground. And sometimes, no doubt, a big cat just gets lost.
The Daily Chronicle reports that a wildlife supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources "had been tracking a cougar sighting in his state. A Wisconsin resident encountered a cougar in the second story of their barn." Although the Wisconsin DNR says cougars no longer inhabit Wisconsin, they also say that cougars are sighted in the state from time to time. Those cougars, it is believed, roam in from other areas such as Canada or Wyoming.
The Wisconsin DNR web site says this: "Cougars (Puma concolor) also known as puma, mountain lion, panther, catamount, American lion, and mishibijn (Ojibwa), once roamed throughout the state of Wisconsin. It was one of three wild cats native to the state, along with the bobcat (Lynx rufus) and the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). Currently bobcats are the only known breeding wild cat in the state..." The web site also has an interesting map of recent - very recent - cougar sightings.
The Chicago Tribune reported that "wildlife officials say that a DNA test should reveal whether a cougar killed Monday in Chicago took a 1,000-mile trip from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Wisconsin before being shot by police in the Roscoe Village neighborhood."
A thousand miles is not really that far, if you think about it. Walking at 3 miles per hour, for 12 hours a day, a human could travel 1,000 miles in 666 days. A healthy cougar would move more quickly, and could easily traverse the distance in about a year. So yes, the cougar could very well have walked here from South Dakota.
An interesting paper (3 pages, .pdf) from 2005, titled "Long-Distance Dispersal by a Subadult Male Cougar From the Black Hills, South Dakota" supports my assertion:The dispersal reported ... indicates that cougars from western populations have the ability to make long-distance movements over relatively short periods to the south and east. Thus, managers in these regions will need to verify sightings of cougars, not only to address questions from their constituents and media contacts, but also to determine whether they represent potential colonizers of vacant habitat. FULL PAPER at South Dakota State University...
Whoa! "POTENTIAL COLONIZERS of vacant habitat." In other words, cougars leave the area they were born in, then go out to conquer the world. Literally. Think about that. There are hundreds of thousands of square miles of "vacant habitat."
The total land area of Wisconsin, our neighbor to the north, is 54,314 square miles. Illinois has 55,593 square miles of land area. That's over 100,000 square miles in just these two states, and a heck of a lot of it would be considered as "vacant habitat" by cougars. With plenty of deer, rabbit and other tasty critters to feed on, cougars would have no difficulty in re-colonizing remote or sparsely populated areas of Wisconsin, Illinois, or any other state.
The Bench's advice: Carry copious amounts of catnip just in case you run into a colonizer.
