MDC SHOOTS DOWN MOUNTAIN LION TALES

JEFFERSON CITY -- Two men illegally shoot a mountain lion in Carter County. A group of people in Reynolds County videotape a live cougar in the presence of a conservation agent. A woman catches another cougar on videotape in her yard on the outskirts of Springfield. What do you conclude?

People who want to believe that Missouri still has wild mountain lions take those sightings as proof that they have survived here. But Gene Kelly, wildlife programs supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation, says that a wildlife biologist, after looking at the facts and asking some key questions, comes to a different conclusion.

"The most honest answer that we can give to the question of whether Missouri has wild, free-ranging mountain lions is, 'We don't know for certain, but it seems very unlikely," says Kelly.

The three cases mentioned above are just a few of the most recent verified reports of mountain lion sightings in Missouri. Kelly doesn't doubt the veracity of those well-documented reports. And they readily acknowledge that Missouri has mountain lions. Fifty-four Missourians have permits to keep captive mountain lions. But Kelly and other MDC officials say the facts of mountain lion sightings don't support the conclusion that Missouri has wild mountain lions.

On the surface, says Kelly, the sighting of two live cougars in a month seems like pretty convincing evidence that the animals are roaming Missouri's hills and valleys. But the devil is in the details.

"The cat that was seen in Springfield was in a developed area," he says, "and the one video taped in Reynolds County hung around while people with spotlights and video cameras came within a few yards of it, talking all the while. That's not typical behavior for a wild mountain lion. They are extremely shy and elusive. I doubt whether a wild mountain lion would be that tolerant of human presence. If you believe these animals have eluded humans in isolated pockets of wild country, that's hard to square with this kind of behavior."

One of the things that initially lent credence to the belief that the Reynolds County cat was wild was the fact that it had a dead white-tailed deer when it was spotted. That made it sound as if the cougar had killed the deer. Most captive mountain lions lack the skill to bring down large prey, so it sounded like this wasn't just a cat that had escaped or been released from captivity. But after the cat abandoned the deer, MDC officials skinned the carcass and found none of the classic signs of a fatal cat attack on the body.

"An adult mountain lion is among the most capable predators around." Invariably, says Kelly, wild cougars kill some livestock, but the MDC has never been able to verify a big cat killing any livestock in Missouri.