LJWorld.com

OKLAHOMA CITY — A mountain lion that was given a radio collar in South Dakota covered nearly 700 miles and crossed several states -- likely including Kansas -- in less than nine months before being hit by a train and killed in Oklahoma.

The 114-pound animal was found May 27 by a railroad worker near Red Rock, said Alan Peoples, wildlife chief for the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Department, on Friday. That's about 40 miles south of Arkansas City, Kan.

A railroad worker inspecting a section of track found the animal about six feet from the tracks and alerted wildlife officials. State game warden supervisor Tracy Daniel went to investigate and spotted the animal on flat ground near the track embankment.

"I was surprised," Daniel said. "All I can relate it to is I've run over two bobcats on state highways and one on a county road. They just jumped down at the last moment."

The mountain lion was last tracked via its collar on Sept. 3 in the northwestern part of the Black Hills of Wyoming, said Jonathan Jenks, a wildlife professor at South Dakota State University. He is running a research project in the Black Hills of western South Dakota in which this mountain lion and 34 others have been collared.

Jenks said he was stunned the animal was able to cover 667 straight-line miles since Sept. 3, about twice as far as this type of cat has been documented to travel.

"We're happy we found him," Jenks said. "It's such a good scientific finding that it overwhelms the fact that he was dead when he was found."

Jenks told The Wichita Eagle that, "Judging from where it was found, compared to where it came from, it would have had a difficult time not going through Kansas."

There have been recent reported mountain lion sightings in Lawrence, Kan., dating to September 2002. World Online editor Dave Toplikar chronicled a sighting in an article for the Lawrence Journal-World in August 2003 -- which meant the cat Toplikar reported seeing was not the same one found dead in Oklahoma.

The South Dakota mountain lion was about a year old and weighed 80 pounds when it was treed with hounds, tranquilized and fitted with a tracking collar on Feb. 24, 2003. By Sept. 3, it had moved 58 miles northwest into Wyoming's Black Hills.

It's possible it then followed river systems to Oklahoma. Its body was found not far from the Arkansas River.

It's not unusual for wild animals to be hit by trains, perhaps while chasing prey, Jenks said.