Airline Won't Fly Dead Cougar From McCarran, FedEx'd Home Instead

LAS VEGAS, NV - Las Vegas has a well earned reputation for bizarre and absurd stories but the latest example is impressive even by Sin City standards. Stop me if you've heard this one before: A passenger boarding a plane at McCarran International Airport (LAS) was stopped by TSA for trying to pass off a dead cougar as checked luggage.

The most unbelievable part? The passenger, who had been big game hunting in Utah, was completely within their rights to do so. Unfortunately the airline had a different policy.

"It looks like somebody was game hunting and had put the animal in their checked bag and TSA was screening the bag. It's not illegal to ship the animal that way, but its up to the airline to decide," said LAS spokesperson Melissa Nunnery.

The cougar was properly tagged by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Nunnery said. There is no airport policy in place that dictates how to transport wild game. The policy of the airline the passenger was using did not allow for the animal to be flown, so the carcass was shipped using FedEx to the person's home.

In Utah there is no general season for hunting cougars. Biologists gauge cougar populations in certain areas of the state and determine if those populations are problematic. Biologists then set "harvest objectives" where a specified number of cougars can be hunted in a certain area before that area is closed for hunting.

"If they're overpopulated we set an umber of amounts of animals that can be harvested," said Tom Smart, information technician for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.

Among the factors biologists consider, Smart said, are the number of cougars in the area and whether or not they are decimating other wildlife populations such as deer.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this year that cougar permits increased this year in Utah.

While transporting hunted animals isn't against the law, it isn't entirely common. Though she's only been working in aviation a few years, Nunnery responded to the idea that it's hard to recall reading or hearing about any stories like this one.

"I haven't either," she said.

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