CHUCK HAGA Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune | Posted: Monday, July 26, 2004 12:00 am
For a long time, the fiercest predator worrying farm livestock east of the Missouri River was a coyote or maybe a hunter who couldn't tell a white-faced cow from a whitetail deer.
Now it's the cougars.
Perhaps prodded by development in their Black Hills habitat, mountain lions have been reported with increasing frequency on prairies to the east. One was shot in Yankton, S.D., in June, and a pair was reported crossing a road near Mitchell, S.D., two weeks later.
Only one of the big cats was reported east of the Missouri in South Dakota in 1999. Last year: 31 sightings, with a higher total predicted this year.
No humans have been attacked, and attacks on livestock or pets have been rare, perhaps because of a high deer population. But some ranchers are keeping small children close, and there are proposals for a hunting season on cougars in the Black Hills, where the population is estimated at 150.
Cougars once roamed most of North America, but they were eradicated from the Great Plains eastward by encroaching civilization. Now the great cats - also called puma, deer lion, Mexican lion or mountain screamer - may be pushing back.
In August 2001, a 130-pound mountain lion was killed by a car near Harlan, Iowa, about 35 miles northeast of Omaha - the first confirmed sighting of the animal in Iowa since 1867. Two years later, another lion was shot by a farmer near Hawarden, Iowa, and in January a man shot a young lion near Confidence, south of Des Moines.
"We were in a field combining corn, getting to the last little bit of the field, when the mountain lion ran out in front of us," said Russ Gradert, the Hawarden area farmer.
"My wife and I looked at each other and said, 'What the heck was that?' Then the cat ran back into the corn and we got a second good look. It was the real deal."
After checking with a local game officer, Gradert and two friends "got our guns and set up on the corn rows where we thought he'd come out, and he did. It was a nice, clean kill."
DNA from the three recent Iowa lions is being tested to determine whether they were released or escaped pets or circus animals. Gradert said his lion clearly was wild.
"There are three, four families in the area, a lot of little kids playing out in the groves, and I just didn't trust it," he said.
As in South Dakota, there has been speculation in Iowa that deer overpopulation explains the lions' presence. A rumor that cougars were actually stocked by the state Department of Natural Resources to control deer numbers was so widespread that the DNR posted a disclaimer on its Web site.
"I really think it's a trend that's going to keep going on," Gradert said of the lion sightings in Iowa, and he believes the animals may be on the verge of taking up residence again, not just passing through.
"Anyway, we're keeping ourselves aware when we're out there. We tell the kids, 'If you see another one, make lots of noise but don't run. They like to chase.' "
That's good advice, said John Wrede, wildlife specialist in Rapid City, S.D., for the state Game, Fish and Parks Department.
"You don't take flight," Wrede said. "For a lot of people, that is an instinct that's very difficult to suppress. But it will stimulate the chase response. It telegraphs to the animal that you're something easy."
Wrede understands the fear of mountain lions, but he said it's largely irrational.
"They are highly intelligent and very calculating animals, but they are seldom aggressive unless backed into a corner or they have reason to defend a kill, a meal or a kitten. They'll back out of a conflict virtually every time."
People who spend time in cougar habitat "just need to be aware of their surroundings," he said. "If you do that, the risk diminishes substantially. The mountain lion is interested in the same thing you are: avoiding conflict."
The jump in sighting reports in eastern South Dakota and beyond "can't legitimately be used as any measure of the biological density" of the animal, Wrede said. "Most of those reports, they've either not been verified or they have been declared by investigating officers as improbable or unfounded."
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service)