The latest on the Connecticut puma

On the excellent 'Frontiers of Zoology' newsgroup run by bloggo cornerstone Dale Drinnon, Matt Bille writes:

A puma killed in CT walked from SD. Fascinating. If it really did this, others have, or will. But why? Was it looking for a litter box? Following deer populations? Going to see the Broadway revival of "Cats?"

Link to story...

He has a point. The CFZ have been studying this case for some time, and our representative in the area Will deRocco has written an impressive report on the matter which is being published in the next edition of Animans & Men.

These results may well be true, but if so (and one has to remember that the initial findings of the authorities were completely different, and claimed that it was an escapee from captivity) why the secrecy? Why was our first request for tissue samples refused and our second ignored?

The timing is what concerns me. It is only a matter of months since the Eastern Puma was declared extinct, and ever since the puma in question came off badly in an incident involving an unnamed motor vehicle there have been suggestions that it was in fact an eastern puma, proving ionce and for all that the subspecies is not only not extinct but deserving of US Government funding.

The suggestions are that the regional authorities have made up an interesting, plausible and vaguely likely scenario to mask the true (and rather expensive) one. We at the CFZ find this hard to believe. A Government which lies to the people? Never.

We shall be asking, again, for some tissue samples so that we can verify the results. However, the authorities will have to prove that the samples indeed come from the Connecticut roadkilled specimen rather than from a bona fide South Dakota one, and I am not sure how they are going to do that!