Minnesota lynx biologist Steve Loch prepared the following report. The Cougar Network is indebted to Steve for conducting this investigation and bringing the incident to our attention. We are also grateful to Steve for his past assistance to the Cougar Network in our efforts to evaluate and document other alleged "cougar occurrences" in the state of Minnesota.
TRAIL CAMERA PHOTOGRAPHS
MADE IN LATE OCTOBER 2007, VERIFY PRESENCE OF A COUGAR NEAR BROWNSVILLE,
MINNESOTA
On Oct. 23, Nick Schaller, the 14 year old son of Ken and Kerry
Schaller, residents of SE Minnesota, set a trail camera on their property in the
hill country of Houston County. By early morning, Oct. 30, 2007, a cougar had
triggered their camera. This location is approximately 3 km north of New Albin,
Iowa and 4 km west of the Wisconsin border.
Evidence of the cougar's presence is provided through a sequence of photographs,
which captured nocturnal activity of animals in proximity to a pond during a
72-hour period (10/27/07 -10/30/07).
Although the photograph of the cougar is somewhat blurred due to movement, field
marks, which collectively identify it as a cougar, are readily visible - i.e.,
facial mask, 'rounded' ears, long black-tipped tail, physique, and relative size
compared to other animals that visited the site.
The Brownsville record is the
third documented cougar occurrence in Minnesota since December 2004, when a
radio-collared cougar that had emigrated from the Black Hills of South Dakota
(its natal area) was radio-fixed in Harding County, near Slim Buttes in Sept.
2004, and then apparently traveled across North Dakota entering Minnesota near
Grand Forks in December. By January 2005, the cougar had traveled northwest to
Roseau County near the Manitoba border, where it resided through approximately
mid March.
More than 2 years later, on August 20, 2007, the next verified cougar occurrence
for Minnesota was recorded with a trail camera owned by Jim Schubitzke.
Verification included an excellent photograph of the cougar, approximately 25 km
north of Floodwood.
http://www.cougarnet.org/Minn9-07.htm
In January 2008, cougar presence near Milton, Wisconsin was
verified when a local trapper and staff from WI DNR documented its snow trail.
This animal was later identified using a genetic sample collected in the field,
and processed by the Forest Service's Genetics Laboratory at the Rocky Mountain
Research Station in Missoula, Montana. On April 14, 2008, that cougar was
killed in Roscoe Village, a North Side suburb of Chicago, Illinois. That
location is approximately 125 km from Rock County.
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/land/er/mammals/cougar/milton_cougar_timeline.htm
Records verifying cougar occurrence in the 'east' are quite
rare. Thus, interested persons would reasonably question the actual number of
individuals involved in a 'spate' of occurrence during an 8 month interval. Are
these records the result of a single dispersing cougar, or were they associated
with 2 or 3 dispersers? If the latter, this could be telling, and we might
expect to acquire a number of additional records in the next few years, as young
animals disperse from western range. If a single animal, what period of time
will pass before verification of yet another cougar occurs in eastern Minnesota
or Wisconsin?
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Pictures (starting top left) 1. Deer at night 2. Horse at night 3. The cougar at night 4. Deer at night 5. More deer at night 6. Coyote at night 7. Coyote at night 8. Another deer at night 9. Doe deer in the daytime 10. Mr. Schaller at night 11. Mr. Schaller with dog in daytime |
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