ONTONAGON COUNTY, MI – Michigan wildlife biologists confirmed a pair of endangered cougar cubs were spotted and photographed last week in the far reaches of the western Upper Peninsula.
Scientists confirmed on Wednesday that a pair of wild cat cubs spotted on March 6 by a couple of Yooper motorists in Ontonagon County were cougars, approximately 7 to 9 weeks old. Officials said this is the first time cougar cubs have been verified in the state since the big cats were hunted out of existence in Michigan in the early 1900s.
The cubs were not seen in the presence of their mother, but biologists said she wouldn’t have been far away because cubs at that age are highly dependent on their mothers. The hope is all three since reunited, said Brian Roell, wildlife biologist and Michigan’s large carnivore specialist.
It is “pretty exciting,” he said, since this could be the first known cougar reproduction in modern times in the western Great Lakes states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin.
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“We’re just reminding folks that cougars are an endangered species in Michigan, so it is illegal to harass them and obviously you can’t hunt them. But at this point, we’re not releasing any more information on location or anything, just to protect her and those cubs,” Roell said.
He said the cubs were spotted by a local man driving in Ontonagon County.
“Saw the two young kittens running down the road and stopped, and one of them ran under his truck,” Roell said.
“He thought they were bobcat kittens, and so he took some pictures of them, and someone else actually stopped, and they both talked about them, like, ‘Oh, neat kittens.’ And then they went along their day, not thinking anything of it.”
An Upper Peninsula resident spotted a pair of big cat cubs on March 6 in Ontonagon County, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.Michigan Department of Natural Resources
The cubs have not been spotted again since March 6.
Roell underscored that this evidence of cougar reproduction doesn’t equate with a breeding population. Biologists can only assume the cubs were born in Michigan, but not necessarily bred here.
“The birth was obviously in Michigan, because she didn’t carry them here from some other state,” Roell said.
He said that until now all 130-plus documented cougar sightings in Michigan since 2008 have been male cats and presumed to be transient animals from the Dakotas migrating through the Great Lakes region.
“We’re using a little bit of caution about ... saying we now have a population of them. We’ve documented reproduction. Potentially the animal bred here, but we don’t even know that,” Roell said.
DNR scientists consulted with wildlife biologists from western states to both confirm the species and estimate an age of the cubs from the photographs.
“There are not very many states where you can go have the potential to see a wolf, a moose, and a cougar, and so that really should be celebrated for Michigan, that we have the habitat that we do have,” Roell said.
A Yooper photographed what he thought were bobcat kittens on March 6, but state biologists confirmed they were cougar cubs.Michigan Department of Natural Resources
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