Per Christopher Spatz of COUGAR REWILDING, the Puma that was killed for no reason(other than to kill it) on November 20th in Whiteside County, Illinois was the 3rd Puma mortality in 2013- down from 9 last year and 16 in 2011 - east of the Prairie Colonies in south Dakota and Nebraska ...................The bottom line is that the intense, scientifically unjustified and intense hunting pressure that the South Dakota and Nebraska Game Commissions are authorizing on the most easternmost breeding colonies of Pumas in the USA(save the remnant Florida population) is drastically reducing the number of "prospecting Pumas seeking to disperse and find new territories of their own to colonize..........No need to wander east if there is vacant territory in your natal surroundings..........Add to this the fact that there has only been one recorded female Puma to wander east out of these breeding colonies in the last decade and you effectively have zero chance of Pumas once again wandering their historic homelands in the middle, southern and eastern sections of America...................Wildlife should not be managed by the States---wild creatures are part of the "National Commons" and should be managed for ecosystem services and not for hunters!

http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/Wildlife-Biologists-to-Examine-Cougar-Found-in-Whiteside-County-232865841.html#.Uo7zo9WZo5U.email

Wild Cougar Killed in Whiteside County

wifr.com

SPRINGFIELD (IDNR) -- Wildlife biologists will be looking
 at the remains of a cougar found

 on a farm near Morrison in rural Whiteside County to try
 to learn more about the animal’s

 recent history and origin, the Illinois Department of Natural
 Resources (IDNR) announced today.

An IDNR Conservation Police Officer (CPO) on Nov. 20
 responded to a call from a Whiteside

 County farm owner that a large cat had been seen running
 toward the farm owner’s home

 and outbuildings coming from a corn field. When the CPO
 arrived at the farm, he checked

 with the farm owner’s wife, who was in the house, and in
 a horse barn and lot where the 

landowner’s horses were located.

The cougar was discovered in a concrete tunnel beneath
 a corn crib.

After consulting with the farm owner’s wife and IDNR law
 enforcement and wildlife personnel,

 and at the farm owner’s request, it was determined that
the cougar should be euthanized.

The cougar was put down by the CPO. The cougar
 appeared to weigh more than 100 pounds

 and was 5-and-half to 6-feet in length. Wildlife biologists
 will be conducting a necropsy.

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, were extirpated
 from Illinois before 1870 and are not

 protected by the Illinois Wildlife Code. There is no evidence
 that a resident breeding population

 exists in Illinois, but occasional transient cougars have been
 found in the state in recent years, 

likely dispersing from states to the west of Illinois, including
South Dakota.

There were three confirmed cougars in Illinois between
2002 and 2008. A male was killed by a

 train in Randolph County in 2002. Another male was killed
by a hunter in Mercer County in 2004.

 A third male was shot and killed on the north side of Chicago
 in 2008. Although analysis indicates 

these three animals were genetically similar to mountain lions
 from South Dakota, their history in

 the wild is uncertain.

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