By Staff
The other day a reader asked me what I thought about all the recent hoopla about wild cougars roaming around here in Michigan. What sparked his interest is rumors of a cougar hanging out just east of Dowagiac. Though the last officially documented wild cougar in Michigan was killed in the U.P. in 1906, cougar sightings are one of those things that just never go away.
With the DNR averaging about 100 reports a year over the last half century they rank right up there with UFO sightings.
However, cougars seemed to be as elusive as UFOs, as well. Despite all the reports, concrete evidence of them was markedly lacking. What few were confirmed, either by tracks, photos or the animal itself, were passed off as cats escaped from captivity.
That's what the cougar appearing a few years ago in the Barron Lake area near Niles turned out to be.
At one time cougars roamed coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico. They were the most widespread of any terrestrial mammal in the U.S. Relentless persecution and loss of habitat during the 19th century, however, took a devastating toll and by the early 20th century they had apparently disappeared from the entire eastern U.S.
Michigan officially declared them extinct in the 1920s. From that point on the DNR has adamantly poo-pooed cougar reports, dismissing them as either captive escapees or simply paranoid folks that hear bumps in the night.
That was hardly the case, though. Year after year dozens of outdoor professionals from trappers and loggers to foresters and even some of the DNR's own employees reported seeing cougars.
In the 1970s a small population was discovered in the Florida Everglades, further fueling some people's hopes of eastern cougars still in existence.
Huskies and coyotes can be easily mistaken for a wolf; an overfed black Lab can be mistaken for a bear, but it takes a lot of beer for someone's imagination to transform something non-cougar into a cougar.
In the 1990s a private conservation organization, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, decided to go where the DNR would not - to thoroughly investigate these reports. They were astonished at what came to surface.
Tracks, cougar killed deer, and DNA testing of scat confirmed the presence of cougars in 10 counties in both the Upper Peninsula and the Northern Lower. In Roscommon County, Michigan Wildlife Conservancy researchers observed two cougars. Last year a cougar was hit by a car in Menominee County. The cat was not found, but DNA testing of hair stuck on the vehicle confirmed a cougar.
Several years ago a citizen videotaped a cougar in Monroe County over by Detroit. In August of this year a cougar killed a horse in Jackson County. The Township Supervisor saw this cougar casually crossing the road only 35 feet away from her in broad daylight. Undisputedly there are cougars in Michigan. The question is where did they come from? The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy is convinced they are a remnant population that has been here all along.
The Cougar Network, another private organization, has confirmed 22 cougars in 10 Midwest States and one Canadian Province. They take the position that these are transient cats coming from the West. They reason that with expanding cougar populations and loss of habitat in the West, some cougars are seeking greener pastures eastward.
Cougars can cover great distances quickly. Last year a cougar tagged in Wyoming in 2003 was relegated to road pizza in Oklahoma. It had traveled an estimated distance of over 900 miles in less than a year.
Cougar Network biologists are quick to say no breeding populations have been verified in non traditional areas. Nearly all the cougars are young males, the ones most likely to travel in search of new territories. The Michigan DNR is now hedging their bet by dropping the Looney-Tune label on cougar reports and admitting there may be individual cougars in Michigan but they insist there is no evidence of a viable population. As for me, can I be a mugwump (the bird that sits with it's mug on one side of the fence and its wump on the other) and just say I dunno?
Carpe diem.