Cougar Killed on Albuquerque’s Westside | Albuquerque, New Mexico | KRQE News 13

Updated: Wednesday, 15 Jun 2011, 9:34 AM MDT
Published : Tuesday, 14 Jun 2011, 9:13 PM MDT

• Kim Vallez

Albuquerque, N.M. (KRQE) – A male yearling cougar was killed by a car on Albuquerque’s West Side Tuesday, just hours after being spotted in a neighborhood near Montaño and Unser.

New Mexico Game and Fish Department spokesperson Ross Morgan says there were two sightings of the mountain lion Monday night, one by a landscaping crew, the other by a woman who saw it in her backyard drinking from her pond.

Crews chased the animal in an attempt to tranquilize it but were unsuccessful before it ran back onto the mesa. Tuesday morning it was found dead alongside the road.

Morgan says the condition of the animal was concerning.

"This yearling was in really bad shape; it was 25 or 30 pounds," he said.  "It could hardly jump the fence when we were chasing it. It was emaciated and not doing well at all."

Morgan says this animal should have been about 50 pounds and still with its mother. He says it’s likely the mother died or set the animal loose to fend for itself in these dry conditions.

It’s unusual for mountain lions to be spotted in Albuquerque, but Morgan says it will likely happen more often because of the drought. He says smaller animals like rabbits will be drawn to the grassy yards and the predators will follow.

He says small pets are also in danger because predators like mountain lions and bobcats see them as easy prey.

Morgan says more bears will likely frequent populated areas as well, but that they are scavengers so they don’t present as big a threat to animals or people.

Cougar Killed on Albuquerque’s Westside | Albuquerque, New Mexico | KRQE News 13

Local News | Rare photo shows 8 cougars on game trail | Seattle Times Newspaper

By Craig Welch

Seattle Times environment reporter

COURTESY OF BRAD THOMAS

One cougar snarls as eight cougars congregate on a rock cliff near Moses Coulee in Central Washington in this image captured Dec. 23 by a remote motion-sensor camera.

SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

SPECIAL TO THE SEATTLE TIMES

They don’t exactly hunt in packs, don’t travel in herds and aren’t typically thought of as communal beings.

The image of the mountain lion as a stealthy, solitary beast is woven into the fabric of the American West.

And yet there they were on a game trail in Eastern Washington — eight creatures famous for being loners, all huddled together as if attending some big-cat block party.

Brad Thomas captured the images a few days before Christmas on a trail camera, triggered by a motion sensor, set up on private land in Douglas County. He submitted a disc of photos to cougar experts with the state. After reviewing and discussing the images among themselves, the biologists declared the pictures extraordinary — a rare glimpse of fellowship among the West’s common but elusive mountain lions.

Local News | Rare photo shows 8 cougars on game trail | Seattle Times Newspaper

NM Wild Action Center

150 WORDS FROM YOU CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN EXTINCTION AND SURVIVAL.

Mexican gray wolves need your help to stop Congress from taking away the safety net of the Endangered Species Act. Thanks to this important environmental law, we still have wolves in New Mexico and Arizona playing their part in the balance of nature.
Just 50 Mexican wolves remain in the wild today. While their numbers have improved modestly in the last year, they are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Now is not the time for Congress to remove protections for imperiled Mexican wolves and open the door for state wildlife agencies like the Arizona Game and Fish Department to kill wolves when they inconvenience livestock owners.
Wildlife officials in Wyoming have said they would allow wolves to be shot, trapped, and poisoned on sight. The state of Idaho’s official position is that there should be zero wolves in the state. Montana wants to institute a wolf hunting season.
If the bills introduced by Congressman Rehberg and Senator Hatch or similar bills pass, the fate of gray wolves will be decided by state agencies that say they would kill them. This is like putting banks in charge of financial reform.
This is the greatest threat to the Mexican wolf’s survival since its first extinction in the wild around 1980, when the last seven were protected and later bred in captivity. The nearly extinct lobo was reintroduced because of the Endangered Species Act.

That’s why people are calling these bills what they really are: wolf extinction bills.
And they put more than wolves in peril -they threaten all wildlife and the Endangered Species Act itself. Never before has Congress stripped ESA protection from a single species – this sets a dangerous precedent to let any animal go extinct based on politics rather than the sound science the ESA requires.
You can tell your members of Congress, your state government, and hundreds to thousands of your fellow citizens to stop wolf extinction bills with one short letter, if you send it to a newspaper.
Surveys show that the letters page is one of the most closely read parts of the paper. It’s also the page policy-makers look to as a barometer of public opinion. If you mention AZ Game and Fish and/or Senators Kyl, McCain, Udall, and Bingaman in your letter, the agency or Senator’s staff will most likely see that letter during a regular scan of the media.

NM Wild Action Center