Mountain Lion’s Major Move
The cougar who traveled 1,500 miles
Cougars aren’t common in Connecticut. So people were on alert after reported sightings in and around the toney town of Greenwich, especially after a big cat was spotted near some schools.
The sightings came to an abrupt end after a large male cougar was killed by a big car on a nearby parkway. That was sad enough, but it then turned out that the cat, a male weighing 150 pounds, had found his way to Connecticut all the way from the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The same cougar had also been identified in Wisconsin and Minnesota from DNA samples picked up in those states.
In other words, this animal traveled more than 1,500 miles, more than twice as far as has ever been recorded for a mountain lion.
Male cougars routinely leave their families, but rarely go more than 100 miles. So it’s a mystery why this one traveled so far …
… and only to be hit by a car at the end of it all.
Read more at the New Rochelle Patch.