The news that a mountain lion spotted roaming through western Connecticut last month hadn’t been an escaped pet, as experts first believed, but in fact had been a wild animal that wandered here all the way from the Black Hills of South Dakota, would have been much more thrilling if the hapless creature hadn’t been flattened by an SUV on the Wilbur Cross Highway in Milford June 11.

I suppose it would have been equally ignominious if the cougar had been hunted and shot after devouring somebody’s beloved Lhasa Apso — either way it was a sad end, and I wished I could have seen the critter while it was still standing (from a safe distance, of course).

Turns out the 140-pound cat, estimated to have been 2-5 years old, probably was done in by an all-too-familiar temptation — a long, lonely search for a mate, said Daniel C. Esty, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

In other words, he was looking for love in all the wrong places.

Esty on Tuesday called the findings of extensive research confirming the cougar’s origins “amazing news,” considering the animal apparently traveled some 1,500 miles from South Dakota and through Minnesota and Wisconsin before it’s ill-fated highway crossing in Connecticut.

Wildlife experts tracked its route using genetic testing and by comparing droppings and hair found in the other states. DNA tests showed that tissue from the animal matched the genetic structure of the mountain lion population in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Like most people who spend a fair amount of time outdoors, I dismissed early reports of cougar sightings in Connecticut as unreliable. Probably a bobcat, I figured.

I’ve seen a bobcat in North Stonington and could understand how a typical suburbanite might think it was a mountain lion. Connecticut also had its own unfortunate episode involving an escaped chimpanzee to remind us that some misguided animal-lovers keep wild beasts as pets for fun and profit, so that was another possibility.

A necropsy of the lion showed it did not have an implanted microchip, as do most such animals kept in captivity. Examiners also found evidence of porcupine quills, meaning it had been living in the wild.

Before making my hasty conclusions I should have taken into consideration how frequently we see animals today that once were strangers to our state. Black bear sightings are now so common in the Nutmeg State that people are already treating them as nuisances, especially when they topple bird feeders or splash around in backyard pools.

Same goes for coyotes. Not too long ago you had to be on the prairie to see one; now the East Coast animals are reviled for chasing pet cats and rummaging through garbage.

Then there are moose. Every so often one strays here from northern New England. I typically see a dozen or so each year when I tramp through the woods in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, but have yet to see one here.

To be honest I’ve had enough trouble keeping deer out of my garden; if I had to deal with Bullwinkle I’d probably switch to frozen vegetables.

While we New Englanders assume most wildlife interlopers originate from the north and west, quite a few have worked their way here from the south.

When I was growing up I never saw a possum, but the southern species is at home now in Connecticut as it is in Mississippi.

Turkey vultures also arrived here from the South comparatively recently. I remember not too many years ago hiking to a remote hillside in eastern Connecticut where a flock roosted just to see the giant birds up close.

Now a day doesn’t go by that I don’t observe a dozen ore more circling above the treetops, or, occasionally, feasting on an animal carcass on the side of the road.

Bald eagles, on the other hand, have flown in from the north and are nesting year-round in various parts of the state. I saw one not long ago flying over the Groton Reservoir.

As for mountain lions, Esty of the state DEEP doesn’t think the one killed in Milford signals the beginning of a gradual migration from the west.

Even so, it was the first sighting of a cougar in Connecticut in more than a century.

As he told the Associated Press, “The journey of this mountain lion is a testament to the wonders of nature and the tenacity and adaptability of this species. This mountain lion traveled a distance of more than 1,500 miles from its original home in South Dakota – representing one of the longest movements ever recorded for a land mammal and nearly double the distance ever recorded for a dispersing mountain lion.”

A wonder of nature, indeed. Too bad it ended the way it often does for wild animals that stray into civilization.