Cam Winton and others who live in the Minneapolis neighborhood where a cougar was seen earlier this month were saddened when the big cat was struck and killed by a motorist as it crossed a freeway west of downtown.
"Plenty of people were heartbroken," said Winton, who lives near where the cougar was seen on home security video sauntering across a driveway in the Lowry Hill neighborhood in the early morning hours of Dec. 4. "A lot of people wanted to see a happier ending to the story."
Now the large cat will live on, in a sense.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources approved a request from the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to receive the remains of the 2-year-old male cougar, said Dan Stark, a large-carnivore specialist with the DNR.
In the coming months, the DNR will transfer the mountain lion to the Park Board, which plans to create an educational display featuring the cougar that will be on view at city recreation centers and other facilities, said spokeswoman Robin Smothers.
"I think this is a good opportunity to tell the story about cougars in Minnesota and ones that wander through the state, and to provide a connection to the community where it attracted attention," Stark said.
Cougar sightings in Minnesota are extremely rare, Stark said. The cougar seen in Minneapolis this month was fatally struck while crossing I-394 near Theodore Wirth Parkway on Dec. 6. It was believed to be only the third cougar identified in Hennepin County since 2004. A tag on the cat's ear revealed that he had traveled 650 miles from the Oglala National Grasslands in northwest Nebraska to Minneapolis.
The cat's appearance attracted a large following on social media and generated several news stories.
