The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #103749   Message #2124937
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
13-Aug-07 - 10:39 PM
Thread Name: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
Subject: RE: BS: News of Note (was 'I Read it . . .')
Cougar breaks into jewelry store.

This story, "Officers nab cougar in Plaza shop, was printed in the Santa Fe New Mexican, August 12, 2007.
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/66564.html
Cougar
I have shortened the article.

This happened in downtown Santa Fe, not in the outskirts. About one AM, police got word of a big cat roaming downtown. Officers located the cougar inside a jewelry store on the Plaza after finding a large hole in the glass door of the store. An officer confronted the cat in a dark hallway and fired a slug from a 12-gauge shotgun. The police retreated and called the State Dept. of Game and Fish. The Game and Fish Officer, John Zamora, drove two hours from Tierra Amarilla. He found the cat in the last stall of a restroom. No blood, so the shotgun had missed.
He loaded his dartgun, crawled into the restroom to about eight feet of the cougar. Zamora said he had to lay flat on his stomach so he could shoot under the stall door. He hit him in the shoulder area.
The cat reacted wildly to the dart, tranquilizer darts explode on impact to drive the drugs into the animal. Zamora and a policeman raced to get out and closed the door.
After 15 minutes, the 100 pound cat was tranquilized and placed in a large dog kennel.
Zamora took the cat back to a wilderness area near Chama, some 2 hours north and west of Santa Fe, where it was tagged and released into the wild.

Why a jewelry store? A cafe two doors down.