http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_15832238?nclick_check=1
On a tradition, trails, trackers and more …
Pioneer Press
SETTLE DOWN, COUGAR
Some of us crossed this continent in search of a mate. But chances are we did it with assistance from an internal combustion engine or an airplane.
But consider the lovelorn Vadnais Heights cougar. This is the 125-pound male cat who was sighted in the Twin Cities in December and tracked across the St. Croix River into Wisconsin. He made appearances in Champlain, Vadnais Heights and Stillwater.
(We note: The path crosses both the Fourth and Sixth Congressional Districts. This suggests that the cougar is politically independent.)
Biologists believe this fellow headed east in search of a true love. They tracked him, via droppings and DNA tests, through Dunn and Eau Claire counties in southeastern Wisconsin, and then north to Price and Bayfield counties. He is believed to be a wild cougar, not one released from captivity.
“Unless they find a mate, they will keep roaming,” Dan Stark of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources told Outdoors Editor Chris Niskanen.
We hear you.
We do not know the end of this story. We like to think the cougar, like many of us, found a life’s partner at the end of the journey, and that they have settled down to a quiet, domestic life, full of cougar kittens and lots of deer and rodents, but not farm animals, to gnaw on.