Judge Tells Man to Remove Pet Cougar

A man who keeps a cougar and three African wild cats as pets must find somewhere else for the animals until his neighbors’ lawsuit is settled, a judge ruled.

Gary L. Dutcher must remove the animals, saying their continued presence would pose “an unacceptable risk” to the neighborhood, Allen Superior Judge Stanley Levine said Tuesday in his preliminary injunction.

In January, Dutcher crashed his car while taking home his 150-pound cougar Samson from a veterinary clinic. The cat escaped from the car, and police shot and killed it when it lunged at an emergency worker.

A neighborhood association last week filed a lawsuit claiming Dutcher’s three African servals – each weighing about 50 pounds – and a 7-year-old cougar violate association rules and are “inherently extremely dangerous.”

Dutcher said during the hearing that he already had removed the cats from his home northeast of Fort Wayne. It was not immediately clear where they were taken.