Iowa City cites six cougar reports

IOWA CITY -- Six cougar sightings have been called in to Johnson County Animal Control within the past three weeks, with the most recent reported in an Iowa City neighborhood Wednesday afternoon.

In addition to the report of a Wednesday, Sept. 14, sighting, Johnson County Animal Control and University Heights police received several calls regarding what local citizens thought was a cougar near Horn Elementary School Sept. 2.

The presence of a large roaming cat in the area has not been confirmed. Local officials say that although cougar sightings are rare, they are not unheard of in Iowa, and citizens should take precautions if they believe they have seen one.

“Very few cougars have been hunted or killed in Iowa within the past 25 years, but we take all sightings very seriously,” Johnson County Animal Services supervisor Misha Goodman said.

While the sightings have been referenced by different names -- cougar, mountain lion, even puma -- the name is purely a matter of semantics, officials say.

“It's the same animal, it's just regional with the different names," said Bonnie VanEllen, cat animal keeper at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. "The early Spanish explorers called it a mountain lion, but because of its range from Canada to Florida, the animal was renamed several times. The Inca called it puma, indigenous people of South America called them cougars, sometimes even jaguars are called panthers or catamounts."

Foot patrols are conducted after each call Animal Control receives regarding cougars or other potentially dangerous animals at large, but Goodman says that no physical signs of a large cat have been found in University Heights or Iowa City thus far.

“There is usually around one sighting in the area of Hickory Hill Park each year, but we never have been able to determine anything in the past,” Goodman said. “Thus far, nothing has been caught on film.”

According to Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Tim Thompson, the likelihood of seeing a cougar living in the wild is extremely rare in Iowa - only five confirmed cases of wild cougars have been confirmed in the state over the past 10 years.

If people do see a cougar in the state, Thompson says the Department of Natural Resources never rules out the possibility of an individual keeping one as an exotic pet, as they have been found being kept in and around homes in the past.

“If we have good tracks, we can tell what it [the reported animal] is, but with this dry weather we're not going to be able to find those right now,” Thompson said. “In most cases it's impossible to verify without having that type of evidence.”

Iowa City Police Sgt. Denise Brotherton says that although officers with the department have not seen a cougar, citizens should always take extra precautions when they encounter any large wild animal.

“A large domestic cat or dog can potentially be just as dangerous as a big cat (like a cougar) and may be able to do just as much damage,” Brotherton said. “People need to just be careful and call the police or animal control to take care of it - we go through training to do this.”

Goodman agreed, saying that local citizens should not worry excessively about the alleged sightings in the area over the past three weeks. Instead, people should always be aware of their surroundings and any wild animal they may encounter, she said.

“If there is a cougar out there, it would come out at dusk to hunt, but it wouldn't want to be in a populated area or around people,” Goodman said. “The only real reason it would probably be in the area is if it were sick, lost or starving to death.”