The Great Cougar Cover Up and Animal Rights

This is not Wisteria Lane. It's Chicago, Illinois.

I hesitated to ride my bike today. They say that cougars are only a danger to us at dawn and at dusk, and I'm finishing today kind of late, surely dusk, so who wants to be some big cat's dinner?

But I rode anyway.

Last night the local news broke a big story, one important to people like me: The Great Cougar Cover Up. Apparently our lone Chicago cougar didn't have to run 950 miles to get Chi-Town from South Dakota. He and his friends generally roam around southeastern Michigan, not all that far away at all.

There have been over 1500 cougar sightings in Michigan in recent years, and they get little press, if any. Every cougar should have his 15 minutes of fame, I feel.

But beyond that, when faced with the evidence- a video and photos of two large cougars stomping around a Michigan farm, government officials told the farmer that she had footage of house cats.

A photography expert superimposed two real house cats into the picture alongside an image of a six foot tall male human. If you look closely, the house cats are barely visible, the human is clearly tall, and the cougars, well, they're obviously cougars.

Experts in the Department of Natural Resources say that the reason there's no publicity on this is that the government really doesn't want the public to know. If the cats are on a list of extinct species, shooting them would be a federal crime. And the animal rights activists, too, will become very angry.

Which brings us to, Now What? If they're hungry and they're visiting Chicago . . .

In Israel, when you drive into into certain areas, a security guard will stop you and ask, Yesh neshek? Are you packing? FD, in his beard and shirt sleeve shirts looks like he could be a "settler." So it's a logical question. But no, neither of us ever considered getting a gun.

I'd consider it now.

But of course, getting a gun is a ridiculous idea. I would sooner get pepper spray. I would sooner do nothing at all.

This isn't really a therapy issue, is it? It's really not, unless we go with the question, Are they angry, cougars, or just hungry? But that's irrelevant, the experts have spoken, they're hungry. So the question is why bring it up, why harp on this business about the cougars?

I do it because I'm a person, and cougars eat people. They prefer a good piece of coyote, but who's to say where their tastes are going to go? Twenty years ago not very many people ate sushi.

So I'm really asking the animal rights activists out there, What should someone like me do, supposing I run into a cougar on the bike path? I'm a human and humans are mammals and mammals are cougar prey. And did I mention that I have grandchildren in California and that there are cougars there, too? They're everywhere!

Let me know. Should we all be packing pepper spray, or guns that shoot blanks, or perhaps yesterday's hamburgers? What should we do? Would that really work, hamburgers? How old can they be?

therapydoc

City Cats

This is ridiculous. I live in Chicago. Occasionally, if we're lucky, Chicagoans will see a stray deer in the viscinity of the forest preserves. Indeed I pulled over on my way home from the airport last week to show my grandsons Bambi and a friend of hers, two doe grazing in an empty lot.

Last October, in 2007, as I was on my way to work early on a Sunday morning, a coyote zipped past me on the bike path near the Chicago River. I spotted a few of them trotting down Sacramento Ave just last week. Understand, this is the third largest city in the country. Non-domestic animal sightings are a little weird. We have to drive to Lamb's Farm (a nice non-profit organization in Libertyville that you should check out with the kiddies) to see sheep.

But 2008 is apparently the Year of the Cougar. A few weeks ago police shot a wild cougar (is there such a thing as a domesticated cougar?) in front of Ravenswood Hospital, not that far from my office.

Animal rights activists were up in arms, as cougars are generally after deer and smaller mammals, not people, but this defense has yet to be tested here in town. Cougars can kill people, we think. They're armed. The protesters opine that Chicago's Finest should carry yet another heavy piece of equipment, stun guns with animal tranquilizers, something less lethal than bullets.

The cops I see in my office are overdressed as it is. They sink into my sofa. A bullet-proof vest weighs in at about 22 pounds. And guns aren't light. This is not an easy profession, law enforcement in Chicago.

The cougars follow the Chicago River. Native to the Americas, probably from the Dakotas, they have theoretically been chased from their natural habitats and are hungry. They have found the big city and can't get a seat at McDonalds or won't try.

We thought this one cougar sighting/assassination outside the hospital only a few weeks ago, a fluke. Probably someone's cat got loose. People do this. They buy exotic animals and keep them at home, squirreled away in their family rooms. The psychology behind this is flirtation with danger, a need for excitement, primarily, under the guise of a love of animals.

But then we heard that indeed, this isn't the case! The cougars are not pets. They are following the river, some say from northern climes, the Yukon, some say from the south, perhaps as far as the Andes of South America. A long way away. Not an easy trip.

Cougars, as in, plural. More than a rogue cat.

This morning CBS warned us of yet another cougar sighting at California and Lawrence Avenue, again, same neighborhood.

As a relatively cautious, environmentally green individual, I tell people that when I ride my bike to work I am safer than they are driving around in cars. And I take the river route, too, which is scenic. The only danger is an occasional dog off a leash (a $500 fine) that likes to chase bicycles, and I tend to outride them.

So I need to know, real soon. Someone tell me, please, because the weather's getting good and I'm ready to roll.

How fast is a cougar?

anxiously,

therapydoc