Rural Gibbon man shoots cougar

It was growling in his living room window last Sunday

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

GIBBON -- A rural Gibbon man and his wife got the surprises of their lives last Sunday morning.

Ellsworth Wittenberg said his wife woke up at about 6:30 a.m. to close the windows after it started raining. She noticed a cougar near the barn.

The cougar apparently heard Mrs. Wittenberg close the windows and ventured to the house. Ellsworth described the scenario:

"It had its front feet on the window sill and was looking right at me, growling a little bit," Wittenberg related. "I got my .22 and let him have it in the head. He dropped right away. I was surprised my wife had the nerve to open the window screen so I wouldn't have to shoot through it."

The cougar had killed one of the Wittenberg's cats and killed several neighbor's cats, Ellsworth said.

After shooting the cougar, he called the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources who disposed of it.

Over the past 15 months, The Journal received calls from people that believed cougars killed or injured animals on their property.

Callers included a rural Courtland family that displayed a tied-up goat that was killed on the spot and several damaged, empty rabbit cages. A rural La Salle couple called several times and showed this reporter thoroughbred horses that had claw marks on various parts of their bodies.

New Ulm Police responded to reports of a cougar near the Beussman bridge several months ago.

The DNR said that evidence of cougars -- big round, burger-sized footprints, screams in the night, a blur of tawny fur followed by a long, ropy tail -- have been reported for years.

Last year, a Port Cargill employee in Savage set up a motion-sensitive camera and photographed a cougar near the Cargill bins, near the Minnesota River. The cougar must have enjoyed the river bottoms, the home of crows, ducks, geese, turkeys, raccoons, coyotes, possums and many deer, according to the DNR. Dead deer with puncture wounds were found in the area. The cougar returned to the dead deer carcass and was photographed while chewing it.

Cougars are the most adaptable and widespread carnivore in the hemisphere, the DNR said. They lived in the desert, alpine conifers, northern woodlands and tropical rain forest.

Twenty-five deer per square mile in the Minnesota River Valley would provide enough food for a cougar for a year, according to the DNR website.

Cougars are protected but law enforcement have wide latitude to kill threatening animals. Last May, a Bloomington police officer shot a 90-pound cougar that crouched near a popular walking path and wouldn't flee, even after police kicked dirt and shined lights at it.

For more information, visit: www.dnr.state.mn.us.