Probable Cougar Tracks Found in Delta County

Contact: Adam Bump 517-373-1263
Agency: Natural Resources



June 16, 2008
Michigan Department of Natural Resources wildlife officials today announced that new wildlife tracks recently found in Delta County most likely are from a cougar.

A U.S. Forest Service biologist, Janet Ekstrum, who was conducting a Kirtland's warbler survey near Rapid River June 9, discovered some large animal tracks and contacted the DNR's Gladstone office.

DNR Wildlife Technician Bill Rollo responded immediately. Rollo photographed the track, which he estimated to be about 10 hours old, and followed it for about a quarter-mile until he lost it.

Rollo, who had examined another set of tracks found 42 miles away last March, said these tracks were very similar. "The animals that made these tracks are similar in size," Rollo said.

Wildlife Biologist Adam Bump, a member of the DNR's cougar team who attended a training session on cougar identification in New Mexico in 2008, said the photographs taken by Rollo show tracks that appear to have been made by a cougar.

People who see cougar sign should call the DNR, preferably the local office or the RAP hotline at 800-292-7800.

"The discovery of more tracks or a kill site that most likely would involve a deer would be great," Bump said. "In parts of the country where cougars are found, deer are 90 percent of their diet. A kill site is going to be largely intact and covered up with sticks and debris. If you find a deer carcass that is scattered about and not covered up, that's more consistent with wolves or coyotes."

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, originally were native to Michigan but were thought to have been extirpated around the turn of the last century. The last known wild cougar taken in Michigan was killed near Newberry in 1906. However, periodic sightings have been reported and DNA from a hair sample taken from a vehicle bumper in the Upper Peninsula in 2004 was positively identified as coming from a cougar.