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Published Monday November 7, 2005 Very real mountain lion found dead BY MARION RHODES
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

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The call came in at the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office at 7:15 a.m. Sunday.

Sarpy County deputies hold the adult male mountain lion that was found dead Sunday on Interstate 80 near the Gretna-Louisville interchange. A deputy said the cat weighed at least 100 pounds.

A woman claimed she had seen a mountain lion lying on Interstate 80, near the Gretna-Louisville interchange.

Deputy Brian Fjelstad didn't get excited. The Sheriff's Office has received at least a half dozen such reports over the past two or three months.

The latest had come earlier Sunday, about 1 a.m. A caller reported seeing a live, large cat near Highway 370 and 192nd Street, just east of Gretna. No one went out looking for it, because nighttime sightings are nearly impossible to confirm.

"You're not going to find a mountain lion at night," Lt. Steve Grabowski of the Sarpy County Sheriff's Office said late Sunday morning.

As Fjelstad was driving along the Interstate to check out the day's second sighting, he thought he'd probably find a deer that was hit by a car. That's what these type of calls usually turn out to be.

He arrived at 8:07 a.m.

A bundle of light brown fur was lying in the eastbound lane of I-80. "Like a deer," Fjelstad thought.

Then he noticed the long tail. The feet, the size of a grown man's spread-out hand. The large cat head, lying in a small pool of blood.

That's when he realized this wasn't another unconfirmed mountain lion sighting. This one was for real.

His anxiety level rose slightly as he came closer, close enough to touch the more than 6-foot-long animal with the shiny black boot on his right foot. The body was stiff.

The mountain lion was dead.

Droplets of red blood still stained Fjelstad's boot as he recounted the episode outside the Sheriff's Office.

Together with a fellow deputy, Fjelstad had wrapped the cat in a blanket and put it in the trunk of his sheriff's cruiser. It was heavy, at least 100 pounds, he said. With a hand gesture, he showed the cat's size on all fours - just below his waist.

Grabowski, who was standing nearby, said it was a lot bigger than the mountain lion caught near 114th and Davenport Streets in October 2003, which is now being kept at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.

Fjelstad was astonished by the find.

"I never expected it would turn out to be a mountain lion," he said.

But not Sarpy County Sheriff Jeff Davis. A couple of years ago, he saw one of the majestic cats himself.

"I know they're out there," Davis said. "They're on the move."

Although this mountain lion was found in a rural area, there are subdivisions and hundreds of acreages nearby. Davis said he hadn't heard any reports of attacks on livestock or pets, but he warned people to be cautious.

"We get enough sightings that I have enough reason to believe that there's more out there," he said. "Maybe not in my lifetime, but down the road, there could be a problem."

Sheriff's officials said they assumed the earlier sighting was the same animal, if that report was a mountain lion at all. That sighting was about four miles northeast of where the dead mountain lion was found.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission will do a necropsy on the cat to determine its age and cause of death, and examine its stomach contents.

Game and Parks policies will determine what happens with the animal's body, but Davis said he hopes the animal will come back to Sarpy County, possibly for a display in the Cabela's store to be built at the Interstate 80 and 126th Street interchange.

Either way, though, he was sure this wouldn't be the last time Sarpy County would see a mountain lion.

"I've always believed that they're out there," he said. "Obviously, this shows that at least one was."

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