“Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job,” Daley said. Mayor Richard Daley supported the police use of lethal force in a news conference Tuesday morning. “We shoot pit bulls who charge (at officers), so (would it make sense) to let the cougar charge?” “There’s no time to waste when you have a predator, an animal like this,” police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

Police defended the shooting Tuesday, saying that the decision to shoot the animal protected innocent bystanders and was not out of line with their usual response to threatening animals. “Mountain lions can be very difficult to tranquilize and then move.” “Determining what you have to do for public safety can be a gray area,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for California’s Department of Fish and Game.

Most wildlife experts who have dealt with the potentially dangerous animal, also known as a mountain lion, said it’s difficult to criticize the Chicago Police Department’s decision to shoot the cougar Monday evening, saying that such animals pose a threat to humans and are difficult to effectively tranquilize. The unexpected visit fascinated researchers and put police officers in the unusual dilemma of balancing public safety with the beauty of an animal not seen in Chicago since the city’s founding in the 19th century. “It’s intriguing to think it may end up being the one that was here in Wisconsin,” said Doug Fendry, an area wildlife supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

Early evidence indicated that the cougar was of wild origin, rather than an escaped captive, and samples were taken for comparison to blood that a cougar left in January in Milton, Wis.ĭNA analysis suggested that the Wisconsin animal was most similar to those who live in South Dakota, and experts say it may be the same specimen that eventually strayed into the city. On Tuesday, veterinarians performed a necropsy, an autopsy for animals, on the cougar at the Cook County Animal & Rabies Control facility in Bridgeview. CHICAGO - The voyage may sound improbable, but 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.

Cougar by Alan Rabinowitz