Big little cat makes a comeback

CELEBRATING the exploits of frontierswoman Martha Jane Canary, Doris Day sang, “Take me back to the Black Hills, the Black Hills of Dakota”, in the 1950s film Calamity Jane.

The famous mountains, rising from the Great Plains, were home to the Lakota tribe, who were eventually deported to make way for gold prospectors following George Armstrong Custer’s expedition in 1874.

The Mount Rushmore sculptures are a famous landmark in the area. Eighteen metres high, they depict five American presidents. The Black Hills, however, have yet another claim to fame; they are the last stronghold of the cougar. Now, according to a paper published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, this cat is staging a comeback. Carl Nielsen of Southern Illinois University and Michelle La Rue of the University of Minnesota claim that cougars are venturing out of their safe haven.