Big cats are supposed to live here. They rarely bother anyone. An occasional farm animal taken by wildlife should be an accepted cost of business.

I know they come into western Iowa from Nebraska occasionally, but even that is pretty unusual. Johnson County is nearer the eastern edge of the state.

to the South American Andes. Not unusual at all in Iowa.

Seems very cruel to just kill her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar

They're far more common in states further west, which provide the coverage that they like to move around in, and where they were able to find shelter when the advancement of settlers came to be a threat to them. They used to be more common on the plains, but during westward expansion settlers killed them off. Now they occasionally have some that wander in, but confirmed sightings are still pretty unusual.

As the image in your link shows, Iowa is well into in the "Extinct or Severely Reduced Populations" area.

I have a friend who lives at the southern tip of Indiana…she’s got a small farm and had a documented lion kill on her place. They’re keeping it quiet because the nutters will wage war on it if word gets out.

I am not a hunter, so don't know if lawfully licensed only means that the hunter(s) just had a game license of some sort. It is sad, seems like the only reason for it was because 'they could'

maybe 10-15 miles away. I have wondered if there could be a mountain lion nearby, I've heard some sounds at night out here in the countryside that made me wonder...

couple people had photos of huge paw prints in the snow. As far as I know it wasn't killed.

for cougars to be living. I really don't know what would be the extent of their range in such a situation, but obviously there would have to be enough individuals for their range to overlap in order for there to be an established population. There are certainly enough coyotes around, but they are adapting much more to areas of human settlements.

With Iowa being the most human-altered of the 50 states, it would be very surprising to me if there was a documented case of a mountain lion attack on a human within the past 100-120 years.