female lion migrated from SD to Tulsa OK?
Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:52 pm
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/ ... z1jNbJ7mL4
from the Rapid City Journal
A mountain lion believed to be from South Dakota that turned up last year in someone's backyard in Tulsa, Okla., has found a new home.
After spending eight months at the Tulsa Zoo while wildlife officials tried to unravel its story, the two-year-old female lion was moved to the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kan., in late December and will go on display sometime this spring.
"A lot of times when animals come into human habitat, it's bad news for the animal. They end up losing," said Angela Evans, public relations director for the Tulsa Zoo. "This one has a happy ending. She's alive and well. She's got a place with trees and a pool."
"It's not ideal - ideally, she would be in the wild having little mountain lion cubs," she said. "But the outcome is the best it could be."
How the lion ended up in Tulsa, though, remains a mystery to officials in both Oklahoma and South Dakota.
According to Evans, it was a DNA test conducted after the lion was captured that made the link between the two states.
"She matched the DNA profiles of mountain lions found in South Dakota around the Black Hills area," Evans said.
The problem is, male lions, not females, have been documented making long journeys in search of new territory.
"Something unusual had to have happened," Evans said. "But unfortunately, she can't talk. I'm sure she has a very interesting story to tell."
John Kanta, regional wildlife manager for South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks in Rapid City, said since South Dakota began studying the Black Hills population in 1998, male lions have been tracked as far as 700 miles away to Red Rock, Okla. Females, on the other hand, only go a few hundred miles to Montana, Wyoming or other nearby states, at a maximum.
The easiest explanation may actually come from the DNA testing, Kanta said.
Because South Dakota has the most studied population of lions, it also has the biggest sample of DNA available for comparison - a fact that can skew results in South Dakota's favor, he said.
"These other populations, there are relatively few samples and it's not as easy to link," Kanta said. "Of course, it's going to look closest to ours because we've got the biggest bank of material."
Even so, Kanta said he cannot rule out the possibility that the lion really did make the trek all the way from the Black Hills.
"It's certainly possible," he said. "I never say never, but considering we haven't documented these huge jumps in collared female lions, it is unusual that one would make the big jump all of a sudden before setting up a territory.
"Maybe this is just the first ever documented."
According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, mountain lions are native to Oklahoma, but officials have not confirmed an active breeding population in the state. In the region, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado all have populations of the cats.
What officials do know for certain is this - the two-year-old cat caused quite a scene when residents discovered it up a tree in a north Tulsa neighborhood in April 2011.
The police department was called, which then called the Tulsa Zoo for help, Evans said. The zoo has the city's only full-size tranquilizer dart gun, and the cat was subdued and captured after two darts.
The lion, which weighed about 79 to 80 pounds at the time, was then transported to the veterinary hospital at the Tulsa Zoo, where it underwent tests and treatments to cure ailments ranging from an abscessed tooth to roundworm.
"We treated her for everything," Evans said. "Because she had so many parasites in her and on her, she had been living in the wild for awhile."
The decision was made to keep her in captivity, though, because during her time at the zoo, she had learned to associate humans with food, Evans said.
"Once they realize that humans feed you and take care of you, they might think they can go up to any human and get food and treatment," Evans said.
The questions about her origin would have also made it difficult to find a home for her in the wild, she said.
"If she's all the way here and she's from South Dakota, where would we re-release her," Evans said. "When you release an animal, you risk putting them in another animal's territory. That could be bad news."
So, the Tulsa Zoo began looking for zoos that would be willing to take in the mountain lion and found one in the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kansas.
Barb Beurskens, assistant park and zoo supervisor for the city of Independence, said the small city-owned zoo is home to about 200 different species and last had a mountain lion seven or eight years ago.
"We've had the exhibit empty for so long. We just wanted to fix it up," she said.
Their new resident will officially go on display sometime in the spring once repairs are completed on the outdoor cougar enclosure.
"It's a big rock ravine area," Beurskens said. "She'll have a pool down there and trees. She'll feel more at home down there once we get it fixed up for her."
Contact Emilie Rusch at 394-8453 or emilie.rusch@rapidcityjournal.com.
from the Rapid City Journal
A mountain lion believed to be from South Dakota that turned up last year in someone's backyard in Tulsa, Okla., has found a new home.
After spending eight months at the Tulsa Zoo while wildlife officials tried to unravel its story, the two-year-old female lion was moved to the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kan., in late December and will go on display sometime this spring.
"A lot of times when animals come into human habitat, it's bad news for the animal. They end up losing," said Angela Evans, public relations director for the Tulsa Zoo. "This one has a happy ending. She's alive and well. She's got a place with trees and a pool."
"It's not ideal - ideally, she would be in the wild having little mountain lion cubs," she said. "But the outcome is the best it could be."
How the lion ended up in Tulsa, though, remains a mystery to officials in both Oklahoma and South Dakota.
According to Evans, it was a DNA test conducted after the lion was captured that made the link between the two states.
"She matched the DNA profiles of mountain lions found in South Dakota around the Black Hills area," Evans said.
The problem is, male lions, not females, have been documented making long journeys in search of new territory.
"Something unusual had to have happened," Evans said. "But unfortunately, she can't talk. I'm sure she has a very interesting story to tell."
John Kanta, regional wildlife manager for South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks in Rapid City, said since South Dakota began studying the Black Hills population in 1998, male lions have been tracked as far as 700 miles away to Red Rock, Okla. Females, on the other hand, only go a few hundred miles to Montana, Wyoming or other nearby states, at a maximum.
The easiest explanation may actually come from the DNA testing, Kanta said.
Because South Dakota has the most studied population of lions, it also has the biggest sample of DNA available for comparison - a fact that can skew results in South Dakota's favor, he said.
"These other populations, there are relatively few samples and it's not as easy to link," Kanta said. "Of course, it's going to look closest to ours because we've got the biggest bank of material."
Even so, Kanta said he cannot rule out the possibility that the lion really did make the trek all the way from the Black Hills.
"It's certainly possible," he said. "I never say never, but considering we haven't documented these huge jumps in collared female lions, it is unusual that one would make the big jump all of a sudden before setting up a territory.
"Maybe this is just the first ever documented."
According to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation, mountain lions are native to Oklahoma, but officials have not confirmed an active breeding population in the state. In the region, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado all have populations of the cats.
What officials do know for certain is this - the two-year-old cat caused quite a scene when residents discovered it up a tree in a north Tulsa neighborhood in April 2011.
The police department was called, which then called the Tulsa Zoo for help, Evans said. The zoo has the city's only full-size tranquilizer dart gun, and the cat was subdued and captured after two darts.
The lion, which weighed about 79 to 80 pounds at the time, was then transported to the veterinary hospital at the Tulsa Zoo, where it underwent tests and treatments to cure ailments ranging from an abscessed tooth to roundworm.
"We treated her for everything," Evans said. "Because she had so many parasites in her and on her, she had been living in the wild for awhile."
The decision was made to keep her in captivity, though, because during her time at the zoo, she had learned to associate humans with food, Evans said.
"Once they realize that humans feed you and take care of you, they might think they can go up to any human and get food and treatment," Evans said.
The questions about her origin would have also made it difficult to find a home for her in the wild, she said.
"If she's all the way here and she's from South Dakota, where would we re-release her," Evans said. "When you release an animal, you risk putting them in another animal's territory. That could be bad news."
So, the Tulsa Zoo began looking for zoos that would be willing to take in the mountain lion and found one in the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kansas.
Barb Beurskens, assistant park and zoo supervisor for the city of Independence, said the small city-owned zoo is home to about 200 different species and last had a mountain lion seven or eight years ago.
"We've had the exhibit empty for so long. We just wanted to fix it up," she said.
Their new resident will officially go on display sometime in the spring once repairs are completed on the outdoor cougar enclosure.
"It's a big rock ravine area," Beurskens said. "She'll have a pool down there and trees. She'll feel more at home down there once we get it fixed up for her."
Contact Emilie Rusch at 394-8453 or emilie.rusch@rapidcityjournal.com.