A male mountain lion was shot and killed on October 23, 2003 around  6 PM in a corn field in the western part of  Sioux County in NW Iowa.   This is a flat area with little cover, except  for the corn. The farmer   noticed the lion sometime around 4 PM while combining a corn field   and decided to kill it since he had cattle and children on the farm. Around 6 PM he and a couple of his friends killed   the lion. The animals have no protection in Iowa and the farmers knew it   was not illegal to kill the lion. A couple of years ago the DNR   sponsored a bill that would at least give them protection by classifying   them as game animals without a season, but it was defeated in the   legislature. 

 I asked and was invited to see the mountain lion shortly after it was   killed. The cat was a healthy male, 44.5 inches long from head to rear   (excluding tail) and a height of 26 inches from front shoulder to paw.   The evidence I saw that evening indicated this was likely a wild   animal and not an escaped pet since the claws were sharp and I could see   no indication of tattoos or other evidence of a pet lion. I asked the   farmers to get me the weight and asked if I could find out what the lion   had been eating. The next day I was told that the cat weighed 113   pounds and was offered the opportunity to look at the carcass, which   otherwise would have gone to the rendering service. I salvaged the   stomach and both intestines.  A picture of the viscera (VERY LARGE  and not for the squeamish) can be seen here. 

The contents of the digestive track were examined by a local veterinarian,   Dr. Brian Cuperus, with myself and one of Dordt's pre-veterinarian students   Sara Mc Reynolds,  attending. We  will continue to study some of the preserved   material, but know from what we  saw in the digestive track that the lion had   recently eaten a small wild mammal. There was still hair, a few bones (mostly   parts of several ribs) and, fortunately for us, one paw. All the material was   consistent with only one animal. It was clear that the lion's last meal was not  livestock or pets, but a badger or raccoon. The paw was well enough   preserved for a  positive identification.  With the help of the Sioux County  naturalist, Sunday Ford,  we were able to identify the paw as the front right   paw of an adult raccoon.  The paw measured (tip of claw to bottom inside pad)  2.5 inches.  Petersen gives 2.25 inches and larger for the size of a raccoon paw.    The soft part of the meal 
 had already left the stomach and was present as semi-digested material found   in the small intestine. The cat also had some tapeworms in the intestine and two   nematode worms but the nematodes might  have come from his prey.   There were seven fairly solid fecal pellets in the large intestine. The   hair in these pellets appeared to be of the same type as the hair in the   stomach. 

 One should not assume from the last food that this animal ate that   lions in this area do not eat larger prey. Studies of mountain lion   diets elsewhere show that most feed on larger prey like mule or white   tailed deer but also need a smaller secondary prey (like porcupine or   rabbits) in their diets. Due to the abundance of white tailed deer in   this area and the lack of evidence of livestock loss, one can assume   that the major large prey is white tailed deer. The fact that this cat   was male supports the theory that these are males that were kicked out   from areas of expanding populations (perhaps from the Black Hills or   other western populations). All three of the cats that have been   captured or killed in this area (the Worthington Minnesota cat in 1991,   the road killed cat in Harlan in 2001, and now the Sioux County cat)   were male. The same is true of neighboring Nebraska where the state   reports that 6 of the 7 confirmed cats whose gender is known   (captured, killed, or in one case videotaped) were male. There is as of   yet no hard evidence of a reproducing population (confirmed females or   females and litters) in Iowa. 

 My work would suggest that one or perhaps a few cats have been in this   area since 1998 so they can survive for several years in one of the more   intensive agricultural areas in the country.  The killing of this cat   points to the need for Iowa's legislature to pass a bill to give the DNR   the tools they need to provide these animals some minimal protection, or   the mountain lion could once again be extirpated from the State of Iowa. 

James Mahaffy