I met with Lieutenant Jack Topham of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources a little over an hour ago at the view area on top of Billie’s Mountain, and he followed me down the road a ways to where I found the remains of that cougar a couple of weeks ago. We hiked over to where it was, and he sorta poked around a bit, looking at the scattered remains. He said that some lady had hit a cougar with her car in the area last year and believed that it was dead, but by the time he got there it was gone, and he just assumed that somebody had picked it up off the side of the road. He wrote out a receipt saying that the skull had been donated to me, and I went along on my merry way.
There was still a bit of skin and fur left on the skull, and it was a little smelly, but I removed what I could and I plan on boiling it to clean it the rest of the way. It’s too bad it was sitting out in the elements for so long, because the teeth are cracked and don’t look too great, but the rest of it is in good shape. I’ll post some pictures when I get it all cleaned up–it’ll be a nice addition to the usual clutter on my desk.