Linn Grove, Iowa — Another mountain lion has been spotted here in northwest Iowa — and this time it was captured on camera.
A motion-sensor camera was set up by Aaron Anderson near Linn Grove. Anderson was hoping to film the movement of deer, but instead he caught a mountain lion in the images. He posted pictures on Facebook, leading to several posts from others who’d heard about the big cat and a couple of reported sightings, including one around the Linn Grove cemetery.
Vince Evelsizer, a D-N-R furbearer biologist based in Clear Lake, says he’s also seen the comments from people who want to shoot and kill the animal, but he hopes they won’t.
Some residents in Buena Vista and Clay counties expressed fears on social media about sending small kids out in rural areas to wait for the school bus. Evelsizer says the children will be fine since cougars generally don’t want anything to do with people.
In late June, a D-N-R officer killed a female mountain lion that had climbed into a tree on a farm near Galva. The D-N-R said it was the first confirmed female mountain lion in Iowa in more than a century. The animal was suspected of killing some cattle about 30 miles from where it was found and the agency reported it was only the fourth time a mountain lion had been killed in Iowa.
In early December, 2013 a large male mountain lion was killed near Rock Valley. In the 2013 incident, the cat was killed after a DNR officer and another man nearly stepped on it while investigating reports of the animal’s presence in that area.
Mountain lions that wander into Iowa generally come from South Dakota and Nebraska, which have natural populations.
Radio Iowa Contributed To This Story
These are Aaron Anderson’s trail camera images of the animal spotted near Linn Grove………
