Wheaton cougar 'sighting': Brookfield Zoo official says tracks weren't left by mountain lion

Lauren R. Harrison
September 17, 2009

If you see an unfamiliar four-legged creature roaming your neighborhood, chances are it's not a cougar.

Supposed cougar sightings are again being reported in the Chicago area. On Tuesday, a man told Wheaton police that his teen daughter saw "a large black cat, possibly a cougar" walking along a creek bed near Cole Avenue and Bridle Lane.

But on Wednesday, a Brookfield Zoo expert analyzed impressions of paw prints found in the area.

"The prints that were taken were not the size of a cougar print," said Jay Peterson, curator of mammals. "They were too small."

On Sept. 4, a woman jogging in Wheaton's Northside Park said her dog chased a "cougar" into the woods, police said.

"She claimed it was a cougar because she grew up out West and knew what cougars looked like," said Wheaton Police Deputy Chief Thomas Meloni. "She too described it as a black cougar."

One problem:

"There have never been black cougars recorded in the wild," said Clay Nielsen, a wildlife professor at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. "People hear reports ... and pretty soon what they saw was probably the cougar too," he said, adding that Illinois has had only three cougar confirmations in the last 140 years.

Kerry Vinkler, a director at DuPage County Animal Care and Control, noted there were numerous sightings reported after Chicago police shot and killed a cougar in April 2008.

"They do seem to come in groupings over a period of time," she said. "There's always an increase in calls right after there's been media attention."

So what might that animal have been in Wheaton?

"I thought it might be a jabberwocky," Peterson said. "Not being firsthand with all of the reports, I would just be out in conjecture land."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-talk-cougar-sightingsep17,0,5416764.story