I'm saying if a cougar travels 1500 miles from SD to CT, it had some help.
I followed that story fairly close when the cat started heading into my hometown area at the MN/WI western end of Lake Superior (near Duluth/Superior) and then its trek across the Michigan UP. It was struck and killed about 20 miles from where my in-laws live in Connecticut. They had a body. They had DNA. If it was a hoax, it sure fooled a lot of wildlife biologists and other professionals.