Additional Information

Five years ago, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy began uncovering evidence of cougars in our state. Many biologists and wildlife officials presumed cougars - also known as mountain lions - had vanished from the state nearly a century before. But the Conservancy discovered information that strongly suggests that the species survived the persecution and habitat changes of the late 1800s and early 1900s. To explore that possibility, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy started a program of field research in 2001. Data gathered in those studies supports the conclusion that Michigan has a small cougar population and that it probably suffers from in-breeding and illegal killing.

Physical evidence, including tracks, photographs and videotapes of cougars and cougar DNA from scats found by the Conservancy and its volunteers, has caused a gradual shift in thinking. But some people still say there is no hard evidence that Michigan has a cougar population. Yet last fall, the DNR issued kill permits for large cats they thought were probably cougars.

How is it possible to believe that there is no cougar population in Michigan and at the same time issue a permit to kill one? The answer is, the "pet" theory.

The "pet" theory maintains that cougars seen in Michigan are escaped or released pets that cannot live more than a few weeks in the wild. Belief in that assumption causes some biologists to ignore physical evidence of cougars.

The Conservancy's research has shown there are distinct areas of Michigan with long histories of cougar sightings. While individual sighting reports are not always accurate, the thousands of Michigan cougar sightings clearly reveal patterns. Some of the areas where sightings are clustered are very remote, and credible reports date back 30 years or more. They are corroborated by physical evidence in some areas. Pets would not selectively find and inhabit these few areas for longs period.

Based on experiences in the West where extreme efforts to eliminate cougars ultimately failed, it is unlikely that hunting and trapping, though unregulated at the turn of the century, could have completely wiped out the cougars in the wildest areas of our state. Areas of habitat for the cougar and its chief prey, white-tailed deer, remained in some areas despite the widespread logging and wild fires that changed the landscape.

A case in point is the "Club Country" of Northeastern Lower Michigan. Major areas were cut-over and burned, but there were swamps too wet to be altered much. By the late 1800s, some huge tracts were already in the hands of landowners who began to feed deer and protect their properties from trespass and poaching. Sightings of cougars date back to this era.

Nelson Yoder, a local historian in Oscoda County, has documented reports of cougar sightings as early as the 1930s. He noted a report of a big cougar shot and photographed by hunters from Bay City around 1919, near West Branch in Ogemaw County. That's 13 years after a cougar was killed in Chippewa County, which has been widely considered the last cougar in Michigan.

Sightings in Oscoda and Alcona Counties increased as more people moved there after World War II, and most of these sightings occurred in distinct areas such as a locale near the county line. Citizens photographed cougars there in 1993 and 1997, at locations about four miles apart. In 1998, a cougar was seen 10 miles from there by Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist Larry Robinson. He also photographed its tracks. In 2002, in the same general area, the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy also found cougar tracks and scat, which contained cougar DNA according to analyses by Central Michigan University. This indicates as area in which cougars have persisted, not the aimless wanderings of escaped or released pets. Cougars are still found in the same areas they always were.

Cougars have been detected in other Michigan locales year after year. That's certainly the case in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where the big predators have been sighted at least as far back as the 1950s. Since the National Park Services developed the area as a major recreational site in the 1970s, cougar sightings have increased. The Wildlife Conservancy's field researchers and park staff have independently observed cougars and their signs in the park for the past three years. Pets would likely be short-lived in the wild and not last more than 30 days in winter, according to many biologists.

Since 1989, it has been illegal to keep captive cougars in Michigan without a permit. The only permits issued to individuals were for cougars grandfathered in by law. There are only a handful of such cougars and they are now at the end of their expected life spans. At least five cougars have been captured or killed in Minnesota since 1980. None have shown any evidence of captivity (such as tattoos, collars or micro-chips).

There is evidence that some, if not all, Michigan cougars are breeding. The chance of pet cougars finding each other and breeding is slim.

More than $50 million was spent over a 30-year period studying cougars in Florida. Those cougars - called Florida panthers - were thought to be escaped or released pets until researchers painstakingly found they were part of a remnant, in-bred population that had not increased significantly for at least half a century.

If cougars have always been in Michigan, and so many deer are available as prey, why are there so few cougars? In a small animal population, a lack of genetic variability allows the population to survive over time, but not to thrive and grow. Such a genetic bottleneck is the only science-based explanation for a cougar population that does not prosper where prey is abundant. This kind of genetic bottleneck was well documented in Florida, but not in the cougar populations of California, Texas and other areas of the west where more animals were left. Cougar numbers surged there after hunting and trapping of cougars was limited.

Skeptics of a wild cougar population in Michigan have often cited reports of black cougars as evidence the cats must be escaped leopards or other exotics. Black cougars rarely, if ever, occur in healthy, genetically-diverse populations. Only three black cougar carcasses have been documented in the Western Hemisphere. But the recessive gene for black hair in cougars could occur more often in in-bred populations. About a dozen black bobcats have been trapped and photographed in Florida over the years. An in-bred bobcat population there also periodically produces jet-black animals.

Many Michigan residents have reported black cougars and there is convincing videotape of what appears to be a black cougar from one area of the Lower Peninsula. Until more information about Michigan cougars is available, it would seem unwise to count reports of black cougars as evidence that Michigan cougars are escaped pets.

The lesson all of us in Michigan should be learning from the Wildlife Conservancy's research is that an open mind is helpful in understanding our natural heritage.

Dr. Patrick J. Rusz
Director of Wildlife Programs

Michigan Cougar