Fish and Game nabs cougar cub

Lewiston Idaho Department of Fish and Game agents captured a cougar cub last weekend after it perched itself in the branches of an evergreen tree and scared the property owners back into their house.

The cat, between 4 months and 6 months old and about the size of a dog, was shot by game wardens with a dart filled with tranquilizer. It’s now being held in a rehabilitation facility.

The animal will likely be given to a zoo or a wildlife facility because it’s too young to be released immediately into the wild.

“If we were to release it, the chances are slim of it making it on its own,” said Jay Crenshaw, regional wildlife manager at Lewiston.

Crenshaw speculated the young cat had been separated from its mother before it was spotted Saturday.

Game agents had received a report of a sighting of a large cat on Friday.

White says low salaries push UI faculty away

Boise The University of Idaho is losing its best faculty to other schools that can pay them more money, said university President Tim White, who appealed to the Senate Education Committee this week for more money to raise salaries.

“We’re getting poached on a daily basis,” White said.

White lauded Gov. Dirk Kempthorne’s proposal to boost spending up 6.4 percent to about $238 million for Idaho colleges and universities. Still, he said the university needs more to compete with other universities as senior faculty members’ salaries have fallen further and further behind.

“Without good people we would be nothing,” said White, adding it would take a 4 percent increase every year for the next five to six years to keep other universities from luring away professors.

Molestation case suspiciously vanishes

Idaho Falls Someone may have intentionally erased a case involving a Boy Scouts of America camp counselor who pleaded guilty in 1998 to child molestation from Bonneville County’s public record, according to attorneys involved in the case.

The case involving the successful prosecution of Brad Stowell, who molested children at Camp Little Lemhi in Swan Valley, has disappeared from the public record without an order from a judge.

Last week, court officials blamed a computer glitch on the vanished documents.

But court arguments this week – and records recently made available – show the case had been erased more completely than a computer program could have done on its own.

Not only did it vanish from the computer system, but the case files have the word “Sealed” handwritten on them in red.

The case was never ordered to be sealed, said District Court Judge Gregory Anderson, one of several judges on this case.