Cougar suspected of attack on horse near Sidney, Iowa (Via Paul Cropper)

Cougar suspected of attack on horse near Sidney, Iowa ; DNR officials are examining the mare after a possible mountain lion sighting
11 May 2010
Omaha World-Herald
Iowa

SIDNEY, Iowa -- Iowa Department of Natural Resources officials are investigating reports that a cougar attacked a 2-year-old quarter horse mare west of Sidney recently. The horse, owned by Jim and Donna Glenn of rural Sidney, was found with scrapes and cuts. Jim Glenn said he has eight horses in a pasture he rents from Lynn Benson about a couple miles west of Sidney High School.

"Lynn came by Saturday morning and said he saw a cougar," Glenn said. "He suggested I check on my horses."
Glenn found the mare limping badly in a cornfield about 100 feet from the pasture. Benson said he was heading from his pasture to his house early Saturday when he saw what appeared to be a cougar. "It was close to 100 yards away, but I had a good view of it," Benson said. "The size, the way he was running, the color -- I don't think it was anything else."

Benson contacted his neighbors who have livestock.

Glenn initially thought the horse had been spooked through a fence and had cut itself. Later, he said, he and his wife found claw marks. "I thought they were fence marks, but Donna noticed scrapes," Glenn said. "There were claw marks all the way down her left shoulder and a wound to her left shoulder. The claw marks went across her whole body diagonally."

Marlow Wilson, with the Department of Natural Resources, took photos of the horse and looked for evidence of a cougar. Wilson said he's not convinced it was a cougar and said the horse could have been injured running through a fence. "I can be talked into either way, to be honest with you," Wilson said. "It seems the scratches are a little close together for barbed wire and they're pretty high on the horse's body, but there's also a wound on the front leg that looks like a fence post or something tore it up."

Wilson said the scratches are roughly an inch apart and lead down one side of the body. There are four or five scratches leading into the skin tear on the shoulder of the horse. The scratches go down the entire side of the horse, Wilson said. He said if the horse had gone through a fence, she would have had more scratches across her chest. "The front of the animal is where I would expect to see the most (scratches) from the barbed wire," Wilson said.

Last week, veterinarian Eric Laumann checked on the horse. "I've been on about five of these that were suspected (cougar attacks) and I'd say this is the only one that has any merit," Laumann said. "The scratches were all along the left side of the horse, and they're about an inch apart." Laumann said the scratches would be about four inches apart if they were from barbed wire. "There's definitely a chance of it being from a mountain lion," Laumann said. "The marks start at the front left shoulder, there's a fairly good piece of skin missing there, and then the scratches continue all the way down the side, back to the rump."

"The wound over the shoulder is a fairly decent skin wound, but the horse should make a full recovery," Laumann said. State wildlife biologist Carl Priebe isn't sure it was a cougar. "Photos were sent in to get a more expert opinion." Priebe said. There have been several unconfirmed reports of cougars in the area, the biologist said, including another sighting near Sidney a couple of weeks ago.

"What we've learned is that these moving cougars are young males, which average about 60 miles a week and never really stop," Priebe said. "Two sightings, two weeks apart is a little bit different than what we know to be occurring with most of those animals. It's different from what research has shown."