Red Alert, Swami:
Holy cats! Did you see the cops in Chicago bagged a 150-pound cougar Monday? Could this be the big cat that was spotted gallivanting around Lake County? And if it is, what are we going to do to distract ourselves from the crushing boredom of reality from now on?
Sincerely,
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
Dear Marlin Perkins:
Of course that was our cougar -- the narrative demands that it was. He wandered out of the wild, poked around the suburbs for a while, got bored and headed down to Chicago to party. And, just like the Hippies at the '68 Convention, he forgot the first rule for visiting Chicago: Don't mess with the cops.
The Boys in Blue cracked skulls when them long-hairs wouldn't get off their lawn 40 years ago, and when a cougar wandered into a neighborhood better known as the home of WGN Television and Lane Tech High School, they shot first -- and second, and third, and fourth, etc. -- and only later would ask questions like "was that a cougar or a big dog?"
If you were among those who were hoping that the cougar could somehow have been captured alive and then, maybe, interrogated about his activities and studied for scientific value, you must not have seen every "Godzilla" movie ever filmed, where the scientists always lost out to the military.
Or you forgot the immortal words of Sean Connnery as Jimmy Malone in "The Untouchables":
"You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"
And so ends our two-week diversion from school violence and Hillary vs. Obama and the Recession-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Trust The Swami, Lake County: We're going to miss the cougar.
Unless, of course, The Swami is wrong about the Chicago cougar being THE cougar ...
I think it's horrible that this cat had to be put down, taken out, shot on site...whatever terms we want to use. Darting and capturing would have been a good thing, if authorities thought they could do it safely. However, in defense of those responsible for "containing" the problem, this article would have sounded much different if the 150 pound cougar had been able to eat someone's pet or child before being killed in the heavily populated area it was roaming. The cat did look well fed, quite unlike any wild cougar I have observed being filmed. It could have been someone's "docile" well-fed "pet". I don't think we have many native big cats coming down from Wisconsin, they just aren't there. I spend my summers and many weeks thoughout the year in Minocqua, and have seen deer, bear, fox and an occasional wolf, but never any siting or word of big cats. Anyway, so sorry the animal had to be killed, but it has been hanging in populated areas, and if cornered by an unaware child or adult walking home from school or work, this cat easily had the ripping and shredding ability to take a person down, open up a neck and cause a pretty swift death itself. What HAS the cat been eating, to maintain that kind of weight? Everyone's dog accounted for?
The largest problem I can see here, is that if it indeed WAS someone's "pet" and couldn't be contained, handled or just let go, got out, the responsibility for the animal's demise ultimately would be on their shoulders.