“Lions In Iowa” Exhibit Opens
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 26th, 2008
WHAT: “Lions in Iowa” traveling exhibit grand opening and celebration.
WHEN: 2 p.m. Saturday, July 26.
WHERE: Swiss Valley Nature Center, 13606 Swiss Valley Road, Dubuque, Iowa.
COST: The event is free and open to the public.
Ron Andrews, Iowa’s foremost expert on mountain lions, will help celebrate the grand opening of the “Lions in Iowa” traveling exhibit on Saturday, July 26, at the Swiss Valley Nature Center.
The exhibit, on display through Sept. 15, addresses myths about mountain lions, also known as cougars, and provides details about their natural history through interactive, hands-on experiences. Andrews, a furbearer biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, will speak and answer questions.
Rumors from all corners of Iowa persist that mountain lions are everywhere. Andrews said there might be a few out there, but very few compared to all the rumors. DNR officials often refer to the persistent rumors as “mountain lion hysteria.”
Iowa has nine confirmed mountain lion sightings since 2001. Three mountain lions have been killed since 2000, all on the western side of the state.
Mountain lions can weigh between 100 and 135 pounds and generally feed on rodents and deer. They can travel up to 70 miles per day. The generally reclusive animals were hunted to near extinction in most of the Midwest by the early 1900s. Populations of mountain lions managed to survive over the years in remote, mountainous areas in the West, but there’s nothing verifiable to suggest they’ve lived in significant numbers in the Midwest over the years, except in South Dakota’s Black Hills mountain range.
Kurt Kramer, a park ranger with the Dubuque County park system, suspects some free-ranging mountain lions might have once been “pets” that their former owners couldn’t care for properly and were “released.”
Sightings of the big, long-tailed cats are numerous — and notoriously unreliable. Iowa DNR employees and officials constantly get pictures of things people think are mountain lions, and they turn out to be domestic cats and golden retrievers. Others might confuse bobcats — far more common in the Midwest — with mountain lions.
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.
