It WAS A Wild Cat

Connecticut’s environmental officials announced today that the Mountain Lion that was killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in June was a wild animal that traveled hundreds of miles from South Dakota to Connecticut. It is the first confirmation of a wild Mountain Lion in the state in more than 100 years. WNPR’s Nancy Cohen reports.

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says genetic tests show that tissue from the Mountain Lion that was run over by a car in Milford, matches exactly, the DNA of a Mountain Lion that had been tracked in Wisconsin. The DNA samples from the Wisconsin animal were collected from its droppings. Environmental Deputy Commissioner Susan Frechette says researchers believe that the big cat was born in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the location of the nearest breeding population.

“It’s quite an anomaly that it traveled this far. In fact it may have set a record for traveling the 1500, 1800 miles or so that it traveled from the South Dakota region to Connecticut.”

Frechette says there is no evidence that there is a native population of Mountain Lions in Connecticut. She says there would be more confirmed sightings and more road kill if there was a wild population here.

For WNPR I’m Nancy Cohen.