It's not so much that they aren't doing their jobs by telling you Wisconsin was not populated with cougars (back then). I don't think there is a good way of knowing. We had the same thing up here until people kept showing pics on trail cams and I believe someone hit one near Escanaba area finally. They were able to ground check that one. I don't think wolves had ever left the area....remember seeing one back in the early 60's. I think they still had a bounty on them back then! I'm interested in hearing about the one that forced you into the house a couple times though.... I remember the Kitty kitty thread you had a while back.
We had a whole bunch of little ring neck snakes here a few Summers ago. Picked up a frisbee off the lawn and a little tiny one that was apparently enjoying the heat in the sun reared up like some kind of big monster to threaten me when I picked the frisbee up. Was comical to watch such a tiny thing acting so ferocious. We used to have black racers and would often find them sunning in landscape yew but don't see too many of them any more.
Never had a bear in our area either, until 1 showed up last year! We are 14 miles West of Notre Dame, 1/2 mile from the Michigan line. People kept saying they saw a bear but DNR kept saying it wasn't. Well the 1st pics started showing up, and finally someone near Michigan city In. took a pic of him standing on their deck looking into the sliding glass door! 1st bear in our area since the late 1800's. They kept saying he would go back North before winter, young male, yada yada yada. Well about a month ago they caught it in a culvert trap and put it down. Said it was to used to people and would be a problem in the future! My opinion, if you would of got off your dead !@# and trapped it when it 1st showed up, it could of been relocated back up North and not been used to idiots who wanted to feed it dog food and take its picture!
That would have made a great defense in the case of mistaken identity. The hunter only had a few seconds to make a decision whether it is wolf/coyote. It took the officials almost a year...along with their research resources, labs, tests, etc!!!!
