Cougar cubs spotted in Michigan for first time in a century

• Wildlife officials have announced the first confirmed cougar cubs in Michigan in more than a century
• The pair of 7- to 9-week-old kittens were spotted in Ontonagon County in the western Upper Peninsula
• A state official called the discovery ‘exciting,’ but noted that the cubs’ fate is uncertain after they were found without their mother

For the first time since humans wiped out Michigan’s native cougar population more than a century ago, wild cubs have been spotted in Michigan. 

But while state wildlife officials are celebrating the sighting of two cubs in Ontonagon County as evidence that the state has habitat to support the species, they’re also tempering expectations.

Believed to be just a few weeks old, the cubs were spotted without their mother on March 6 by a resident of the western Upper Peninsula county. At that young age, cougars are dependent upon their mother for protection and food, and rarely stray from her side.

They haven’t been spotted since.

But with multiple trail cameras posted in the woods near the siting, if the kittens are alive “sooner or later, I gotta believe they’ll show up on camera,” said Brian Roell, large carnivore specialist for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

“We're hopeful that they've reunited,” with their mother, he said. “But we don't know.”

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DNR officials confirmed the cougar sighting using photos taken by the resident who encountered the cubs. Trail cameras in the area have picked up images of adult cougars multiple times since January, Roell said. It’s likely the mother.

The apex predators once were widespread in both peninsulas. But this is the first evidence of potential reproduction in Michigan since humans eradicated the state’s native cougar population in the early 1900s.

Adult cougars routinely wander into Michigan from western states, and the DNR has verified 132 reports of their presence. But DNA testing has so far turned up only males.

Amy Trotter, CEO of Michigan United Conservation Clubs, said her group’s members have long thought cougars weren’t just passing through. In that sense, she said the cub sighting is “exciting and intriguing” but it isn’t necessarily surprising.

“It’s validating what hunters have suspected for a number of years,” she said.

Noting that the DNR has had problems with people trespassing on private land in an attempt to locate the cubs, Roell stressed that cougars are endangered, making it illegal to kill or harass them. That includes trying to locate their den.

The discovery of newborns, he said, “really shows that we have a unique place in Michigan where someone has a chance to see a wolf, a moose and a cougar in the wild.”

“It’s something that should be celebrated, that we have the habitat to support an elusive animal like this.”