Three 44s,
One of the big questions that I have kicked around with wildlife biologist friends is whether or not we have breeding pairs in Iowa. Current thinking is highly unlikely. Like you said its the males with the huge territories and its also the males that disperse the longest. As a result, most the cats that end up here are probably males. Very small total population (In Iowa), most of them are males plus large areas relative to pop size and its unlikely you have successfull breeding.
Once again for the record - the IA DNR openly ackowledges the fact that we have cats in Iowa. I know this because I have worked for the DNR and held the official position statement. For those interested the long and the short of it is as follows "yes there are cats in IA, they are unprotected (i.e. you can shoot them), the IA DNR discourages indiscriminatory killing of mountain lions"
As to the fellow with the story about the collared cat. Not knowing all the details and without speaking to the people who took the complaint I can only make assumptions as to why no one showed up before the cat got whacked. First, to the best of my knowledge, we have a grand total of 1 USDA and 2 IA DNR personel covering wildlife damage control for the whole state. Ernie, the USDA guy, spends most his time working on bird control at airports and food processing centers (Cargill, etc). The two DNR guys live in Chariton and Wastington. Knowing the nature of cats, i.e. here today gone the next, I'm guessing these guys aren't going to drive that far to to chase after a lion thats probably already long gone concidering all the other things they have to do.
As for coming to pick up the collar. If they hear that Farmer John shot a cat you can bet you lunch they are going to send somebody (probably a C.O.) to pick it up. Why? Because somebody out there probably wants their collar back and most states are really good about working with other states. My guess is that the cat in question, if its not a hoax, probrably came out of the black hills as they collar a ton of cats up there. If anyone one is dieing to know; let me know and I will make some contacts and see what I can come up with.
I can promise you one thing, if it was our colared kitty (which it wasn't because we don't have any) your dad would see a DNR truck with telemetry radio antenaes driving around every day.
Now, if anyone still wants to entertain the idea that the DNR has some secret black op lion release program going on, please two two things:
1. Read up on large carnivore biology and dispersal
2. Do some research into what has to happen in large carnivore re-introduction.
If the DNR brought in cats and didn't tell anyone, proof would get out (notice I said proof not rumors) and they would get sued into the ground by the livestock industry. Now before I get flamed over some the wolf stuff thats happened around the country, I'm not saying livestock producers haven't been getting the short end of the stick on those projects, but thats totally diffent situation than the "we'll just let some go and not tell anybody" conspiracy theories that some like to claim about Iowa's big kitties.
Please note two things I have not gone into detail about:
1. People releasing pet lions which does and has happened, or them just escaping in general
2. My personal thoughts on having lions in Iowa or what I would do if I encountered one. As a past and possibly future employee of DNR, I choose to not disclose my opinion on that subject in a public place. However, those that know me personally know my family raises registered angus cattle where cows can be counted by how many brand new pickup trucks they are worth.....you can make your own conclusions.
Matt
