May 26, 2009

Kansas Zoo Cougar Killed


Entrance to the main part of Great Bend’s Brit Spaugh Zoo in Kansas.

Officials at a central Kansas zoo are trying to figure out how a 150-pound mountain lion escaped from its enclosure.

The 14-year-old female was shot and killed by police at the Great Bend Zoo on Sunday evening, May 24, 2009. (This follows an incident the previous day at the Memphis Zoo when a Bengal tiger bit a zookeeper.)

Great Bend’s Brit Spaugh Zoo director Mike Cargill tells local media that the mountain lion escaped during feeding time shortly before closing (at 7:00 PM). The staff quickly moved the few zoo-goers in the area to safety.

Cargill says visitors were never in danger but the situation was “deteriorating quickly.” The big cat was frightened and had a history of being somewhat aggressive.

Tranquilizer darts would have taken a half-hour to arrive so police were called in.

Great Bend police shot and killed the cougar as it crouched in the bushes next to the bobcat exhibit.

Information from: KAKE-TV, KSN-TV, and other local media.


An African lion at the Brit Spaugh Zoo.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Alien Big Cats, Animal Escapees, CryptoZoo News, Out of Place, Weird Animal News, Zoological Parks