The Voyageur Wolf Project has captured the first visual evidence of a cougar with kittens in Minnesota in modern history.
Run by the University of Minnesota, the project has been studying 15 wolf packs in and around
Voyageurs National Park for more than a decade. As part of its research into the wolves’ predation behaviour, scientists started looking at the survival and mortality patterns of deer in the area, and in January put GPS collars on several deer.
In March, they got a mortality signal from one of the collars and located the deer dead under a pile of leaves on a hillside.
Researchers recognized that as a sign of feline predation and suspected a bobcat may have taken down the deer. They set up a couple of trail cameras at the site and four hours later were rewarded with absolutely amazing footage of a cougar with three kittens feeding.
“Looking at the footage was and still is surreal,” Thomas Gable, project lead of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, told the Ely Echo.
“We never anticipated seeing four cougars together in northern Minnesota. In total, we captured around four hours of footage of this cougar family at the kill, and it was fascinating to see and hear their interactions—the mother grooming her kittens, the kittens growling and hissing at each other. We feel incredibly fortunate we were able to capture such a wild moment in such detail.”
“Based on traits observed in the video, we estimate the kittens to be seven to nine months old, so born last fall,” said John Erb, research biologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
“The only other confirmed kittens in Minnesota turned out to be captive escapees and involved a female with two kittens that showed up and hung around a homeowner’s porch in 2001.”
The Voyageur Wolf Project study of deer survival in the Forest was funded by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund. Much of the equipment the Voyageur Wolf Project is using in the study was funded by more than 10,000 individual donors.
In Ontario
The Cougar has a very wide range, encompassing much of North, Central and
South America, in large, undisturbed forests or other natural areas where there is little human activity. Their preferred habitat is forest with plenty of white-tailed deer, an important food source.
Cougars have been sighted in Northwestern Ontario, and one carcass has been discovered since the most recent report of the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario. The cougar is considered a species of special concern under the Endangered Species Act due to human disturbance and forest clearing, which destroys habitat and can reduce the prey necessary for the survival of this species.
“Historically, cougar were thought to be native throughout Ontario,” said the committee in its 2022 report. “However, no specimen of cougar has been taken in the province, no Ontario specimen is found in any institutional collection, and consequently, there is actually no means of proving or disproving the purported occurrence of [cougar] in Ontario.”
“At present, modern reports of cougar in NWO (particularly north and west of Lake Superior i.e., Thunder Bay and Kenora districts, and possibly Rainy River District) are thought to be wild, native… likely present due to western range expansion. It is plausible that a significant number of these animals originate from captive stock. It is also generally accepted that reports of cougar in extreme southern Ontario involve escaped or released captives. However, there is currently no evidence to base these claims.”
The provincial website states:
The cougar is Canada’s largest and most powerful wildcat. Males can reach up to two metres in length and weigh over 60 kilograms. Adult cougars have short fur that is brown or greyish (sometimes reddish) over most of the body, with a white chest and belly.
It has a long, black-tipped tail and black markings on the ears and muzzle. Kittens have spotted coats until they are about six months old. The cougar is a shy animal and is rarely seen by humans.
