By Paul Sloth
Journal Times | Posted: Friday, March 27, 2009 12:00 am
CALEDONIA - The animal lurking out behind Anna Lashley's Caledonia home was large enough and so startled her the first time she saw it that she called the Caledonia Police Department and told them it was a lion.
She thought it might have escaped from the zoo. That was three years ago.
She now knows it wasn't a lion. She's certain it is a cougar that she has seen stalking the edge of a wooded area on her property in the 4200 block of N. Green Bay Road, north of Armstrong Park. Lashley has seen the animal periodically during the past three years. She thinks people are convinced she's just seeing things.
At first, she was the only one who'd seen it. Lashley, 74, said she's seen the animal six times. The first year she saw it twice, the next year, about the same. She's already seen it twice this spring.
"Sunday morning (March 22) it was standing there looking at me as I stood looking out the kitchen window," said Lashley, who ran out to tell her son, who was leaving for work. He came inside and saw the animal, too.
Through the years she has reported what she saw to the Department of Natural Resources.
Marty Johnson, who works out of the DNR's Sturtevant office, said he periodically gets calls about cougar sightings. He has spoken with Lashley and at least one of her neighbors about Lashley's sighting.
Johnson, a wildlife biologist for Racine and Kenosha counties, said he is looking for evidence, like an animal track or a photo.
"It's an effort to search for the animal. We're not doubting what people saw but it's easier to have some evidence to work from," Johnson said.
Johnson said he doesn't think there should be any widespread panic. To date, in the state of Wisconsin, there has been only one confirmed cougar sighting in the last 50 years. A cougar was spotted in both Rock and Walworth counties last year, Johnson said, as it traveled from South Dakota to Chicago where it was eventually shot and killed.
Wildlife experts use the terms cougar, mountain lion and puma interchangeably, Johnson said. There is a very healthy population of mountain lions in the western United States. At one time cougars roamed the state of Wisconsin. The last documented wild cats in Wisconsin disappeared during the early part of the 20th century, according to Johnson.
There is certainly no reason to discount the possibility that there might be a cougar somewhere in Caledonia, said Jay Christie, president and CEO of the Racine Zoo.
"It's not inconceivable that if there were a cougar it may be one that doesn't trace its recent ancestry to the central United States," Christie said. "They're very adaptable. Next to the leopard, cougars have the largest distribution of any mammal on earth."
As for Anna Lashley's cougar, Johnson, who spoke with Lashley earlier this week, has asked her to try to get a photo and said he'll continue to work with her on the situation.
Lashley will hopefully do a better job when it comes time to getting that picture.
"One time I was trying to get one and I was so scared and excited that I had the camera turned around so that I took a picture of my own face," Lashley said.