Attribution: Photo by Michael Jerrard on Unsplash
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, with a special feeling for cats, passes along to the keeper and Phyllis the news of a cougar found cut in half on the railroad tracks near Friendship in Adams County.
The big cat was an adult male wearing a Michigan tracking collar from two years ago, and its movement had also been recorded on a number of trail cameras.
A necropsy by DNR scientists could detect no definite cause of death and it was obvious from its position on the railroad tracks that the cougar had been dead when placed there. To add to the mystery, the cougar’s heart and lungs were missing.
The incident makes the keeper yearn for his long ago “outdoor writer” days when he could have haunted the Friendship area until more of the odd story emerged.
Once in that general vicinity the keeper did a story about an abandoned private zoo and its cages full of animal skeletons. A Madison physician was involved as the zoo owner and the story did not end well as only wild pigs had survived by getting loose and eating the remains of other victims.
There is obviously no limit to the bizarre ways that humans relate to the other species on the planet. How far is it, for example, from poop-bags for the descendants of wolves as they tug at their leashes, to a cougar cut in half on the railroad tracks?
Comments