Reader Recounts Madison County Cat Sighting
We received the following email from Matt B. on April 25th:
Sir / Madam,
I came upon your website after recently hearing a friend talk about his personal encounter with a cougar/big cat that attached his dog outside Kampsville, IL and after the recent Cougar Shootings in Chicago and the sightings by two people and one police officer in Glencoe, Illinois. However two years ago on April 15th, 2006 my wife and I traveled from our current home in the Chicago suburbs to my home town of Alton Illinois for an opportunity for me to Turkey hunt. Although my turkey hunt itself was a nonevent it was on the drive out of town that provided this unusual encounter.
It was late afternoon around 4:20pm on Route 140 between Alton and Bethalto that we saw a large cat pass in front of our vehicle. It was approximately 150 feet to the front and left of our vehicle and continued into a series of soccer fields at Gordon F. Moore Park. We stopped our vehicle and watched for around 90 seconds as the cat quickly moved from open field into the brush and wooded area. I remember debating with my wife about what we were seeing, but it was indeed a large cat with tan and dark colorings whose tail was nearly equal length to its body. My wife never being much of an outdoors-woman immediately declared it to be a mountain lion before I even processed what it was that I was seeing..
This sighting happened by the Gordon Moore park / golf course. The big cat was moving to the north east towards Fosterburg Road. We returned to my parents home to share and process our findings only to hear a tail from my father. He told me of a man who attends their church who had a photo from a trail camera from a prominent Pike County outfitter whom he worked as a guide. This was a big surprise as the only Cougar stories I had ever heard were from the old timers who lived in the Calhoun County area who claimed the recent cougar sightings were part of a DNR plan/conspiracy. Well to conclude my observation I decided later that week to contact the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in Alton after I had returned home to Chicago. I spoke with an officer and shared my story but never mentioned the word “Cougar” because it my goal was to simply report a sighting of a large animal that resembled a cat. After sharing my information the officer, he unapologetically told me that I had probably seen a Cougar and that they were receiving weekly credible sightings of these animals in the Madison, Jersey and Macoupin Counties. He even told me about one cougar that had by killed that the state was conducting testing against to determine its domestic or natural origin.
Although I have seen a variety of animals in the woods of Illinois and certainly bobcats are rare but I have seen a few to know the difference between those sightings and the one that day in April.I hope this aids you in your research.
My husband encounter a large cat (at least 55lbs) on the nature trail between Pontoon Beach, IL and Grantie City, IL. He was within 35ft of the animal when it sprung to its feet and went into the bushes/trees on side of the trail. It was a light tan color with a long tail and had features of the cat family.
I called the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and spoke to the gentleman in the department that handles this - to make this brief he thought perhaps my husband saw a river otter.
I’m very glad that whoever you spoke with in the Alton office did acknowledge the possibility of a large non-domestic cat like animal in your area because the gentleman I spoke with certainly did not feel that there was concern at this time because there had not been any other reports, we had no photos of the animal, nor footprints. So until “something else happens” I guess the animal my husband came upon really wasn’t there ??