Chicago cougar death still provoking debate

It would appear that the dead cougar in Chicago still has folks riled up. Here's another sampling from the scores of comments we've received at L.A. Unleashed:

OK, so next time our Chicago police officers find another cougar within our city limits, they'll catch it. ...BUT... please do drop them a line ahead of time to tell them where you would like them to ship it for a live re-release in LA. Besides, we've got our hands full with the Cubs.

In the meantime, Timothy J. McNulty, the public editor of the Chicago Tribune, writes about how the story played out in print and on the Web.

For two days, thousands of Web users posted comments, many of them criticizing police for shooting the animal. Others argued that police were right to kill the cougar to prevent the large feline from escaping back into the city streets. A second-day story exploring how the animal possibly made its way from the Black Hills of South Dakota via Wisconsin added even more comments.

The newspaper, McNulty wrote, underplayed the story the first day.

-- Alice Short

Photo: Chicago Tribune

Comments

[Bob]

Once again, the trigger-happy Chicago cops fired a dozen rounds to kill a poor protected animal. The cops that killed the cougar and the police captain should be fired. Animal control should have handled the situation, not the Chicago cops who didn’t have a clue.

[kevin higgins]

I think there was no reason at all for the chicago cops to shoot this protected animal!!! i'm sure they the cops could have kept an eye on it till animal control arrived with a tranqulizer gun or someone from a zoo. I live in ohio and i have seen one here on our farm in 1975 i guess i should have shot it because i thought my family was at danger? my dad called the game warden and he said we was crazy that they are not around here,so we asked if we shot it if he would then beleave us then and he said it was a protected animal and he the game warden would arrest us. go figure it's ok for the cops to