NEWS

Mountain lion? Big cat spooks backyards in Sioux Falls

Jonathan Ellis
jonellis@argusleader.com

For more than a month, some residents along Silver Creek in western Sioux Falls have become convinced that something new has taken up residence among the trees and vegetation below their backyards.

On Monday night, one of those residents, Mark Kantack, shined a light underneath a tree near his deck. In the light, he saw a mountain lion.

"I tried to scare it off, and it just kept staring at me," he said.

The reports of a cougar roaming the thick stands of trees along the creek, which dumps into Skunk Creek, prompted a conservation officer with South Dakota Game Fish and Parks to set up an infrared game camera in Kantack's backyard, which backs into the creek. Jared Hill, the conservation officer, said that GF&P officers have not found tracks or other evidence of a cougar in western Sioux Falls. And he noted that 90 percent of cougar sightings are false.

But Kantack's visual identification of a big cat with a long tail, along with other complaints from residents, required more investigation.

"We want to make sure that if there is one, we know about it," Hill said.

Cougar sightings have become more frequent as they've dispersed from the Black Hills looking for territory. The cats, Hill said, will travel along waterways such as the Big Sioux River and other creeks and rivers. They follow deer, one of their primary food sources.

In the past several years, cougars have been shot in Yankton, near Madison and Howard. A cougar killed a goat near Hartford, and in 2006, a GF&P trapper spotted a cougar on the northern edge of Sioux Falls. There was a second sighting near Dell Rapids four days later.

Last fall, Iowa officials confirmed the sighting of a mountain lion in central Iowa that was caught on a game camera.

But there has not been a confirmed sighting in Sioux Falls.

Hill said the cougars typically are scared of people, and the itinerant lions on the eastern plains typically don't stay in one spot for long. They can cover hundreds of miles in a short amount of time looking for habitat.

"They cover a lot of ground looking for that Black Hills environment, which they can't find," he said.

"We don't have any reason to think it's a mountain lion, but it's definitely possible," he added.

Kantack's sighting Monday wasn't his first run-in. Two weeks earlier, he was attempting to scare a deer out of his garden when he saw two large glowing eyes in the trees below his garden. When he shined his light on the eyes, the animal started to run after him, and Kantack said he retreated to the top of his second-story deck.

"I thought it was going to come up on the deck," he said.

Kantack, who has lived there 20 years, said he's familiar with the area and all its wildlife, including deer, beaver, mink and raccoons. This was something new.

Greg and Linda Andersen, whose home also abuts Silver Creek, say they are convinced they saw a mountain lion below their backyard last month. They saw two yellow eyes and something that was growling. A fox was evidently scared of whatever the animal was, because it ran off.

"He ran across the yard 90 miles an hour," Linda Andersen said.

They checked animal noises on the Internet and are convinced the growling they heard was that of a cougar.

"You couldn't confuse it with any other noise," Greg Andersen said.

Linda Andersen said other residents in the area have talked about cougar sightings, including two near Wild Water West.

Reports to the city and GF&P initially were dismissed as raccoons, the residents say.

"What they've been telling us is it's just a coon," Kantack said. "It's not a coon. I know what a coon is."

Added Greg Andersen: "They said maybe it was a bobcat, but it was no bobcat. They told my wife it was a coon, but we used to coon hunt, and it wasn't a coon."

The Andersens have lived there 23 years.

Kantack enjoys wildlife and has no ill feelings toward the lion that he's convinced is or was living in the area. But he notes that children like to fish in the creek, and he worries for their safety.

"When we see a big cat like that, I'm really concerned for kids," he said.

If the game camera catches images of a cougar, Hill said the public will be notified.