If you would move 91 miles east on I-72 (read exit 122) and then move 5 miles to the south to get to the river bottoms, we had a very reliable sighting but back in June.
As far as I know, the DNR still deny's their existance In IL. I imagine that when someone takes one, the cat will then be placed on the protected list. This happened when a Pike county hunter took a gray wolf in 2005 and the "Dont shoot a Wolf" page showed up in the 2006 regs. It will be interesting to see what the DNR has to say about this recent attack, they will probably say that a Badger or Racoon was responsible hahaha.
I don't think that we will need to go out and purchase a .458 as the cats are thin skinned and light boned despite their size and strenght. Many dog hunting guides will tell you that even the .22 mag will put a world of hurt on a treed cat. The real danger would be to have an aggressive cat get to you before you could throw down on it.
