Post by emily on Mar 22, 2008 23:07:05 GMT -5
from the Detroit Free Press
Cougar country: tracks hint at presence in Delta County
MARCH 20, 2008
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said tracks found last week in the Upper Peninsula's Delta County were "most likely" from a cougar, although it refuses to say that this is further evidence for a small population of resident mountain lions in Michigan.
Yet the latest tracks were found five to 11 miles from three other sites where the DNR has recovered evidence of cougars over the past 20 years.
At one site, the DNR got hair and blood from the bumper of a car that hit one of the big cats. Two other sites produced scat -- cougar poop -- found by researchers from the private Michigan Wildlife Federation. And the third yielded a piece of skull from a cat that may have been shot illegally.
In each case, lab tests said the material was from a cougar, although the cats were supposed to have been extirpated in Michigan 90 years ago.
I suppose it's possible that four of the cats wandered in from Minnesota or South Dakota. We know that radio-collared cougars with tracking devices have traveled hundreds of miles. But the odds of them repeatedly leaving traces in such a tiny area of the UP don't add up.
The Delta County tracks were found by Mike Zuidema, a retired DNR forester from Escanaba, who, for three decades, has been collecting evidence of cougar sightings in Michigan.
"The DNR won't say positively that even these tracks are from a cougar," Zuidema said this week. "They keep saying things like the tracks are from a very large cat that was 'most likely' a cougar. They won't list it as 'verified.' I guess they won't say for sure that we've got a cougar until somebody catches one."
Zuidema's efforts to confirm the existence of cougars in Michigan earned him the nickname Crazy Mike among some DNR biologists, but he had heard so many cougar stories from so many sensible, credible people that he was convinced that at least some must be real.
Zuidema filled notebooks with about 900 reports. Some clearly were fabrications, like the man who claimed to have seen a male and female cougar with their cubs. (A male cougar that came across a female and cubs would kill and eat them.) Others were hazy enough that the people might have seen a big dog, wolf or even a house cat.
But many sightings were made in good conditions and at such close range that the people couldn't have seen anything else but a huge cat that looked like a cougar. If only 10% of those sightings were real, it still added up to dozens of reliable reports.
It also intrigued Zuidema that many reports were clustered in small areas where people kept seeing cougars over decades.
There were even reports of females with cubs, usually seen by hunters in tree stands who were familiar with Michigan wildlife and unlikely to mistake a cougar for a bobcat at a range of 10 to 20 yards.
It suggested to Zuidema that a few cougars had survived the logging era in places that offered ideal habitat and where people didn't often go. When the Michigan Wildlife Federation investigated his claims, it took researchers little time to locate scat in places where Zuidema told them to look -- scat that DNA tests confirmed came from cougars.
This latest find proves that Zuidema is crazy like a fox and should spur the DNR to do a serious investigation this summer of the area where the tracks were seen. Adding to the possibility of cougars here is a recent, unquestionable sighting and DNA confirmation of a cougar in southern Wisconsin only 85 miles from Milwaukee and 100 from Chicago.
State wildlife managers need to push aside the animosity between them and the Michigan Wildlife Federation and enlist the aid of that group in finding evidence like scat, which can be subjected to DNA analysis and determine not only if we have cougars, but the family relationships between them.
That may cost a little, not something the DNR wants to hear. But its primary task is to protect, preserve and enhance the natural resources of this state, and there's no way to argue that the rarest animal in Michigan is not among them.
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.
Cougar country: tracks hint at presence in Delta County
MARCH 20, 2008
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said tracks found last week in the Upper Peninsula's Delta County were "most likely" from a cougar, although it refuses to say that this is further evidence for a small population of resident mountain lions in Michigan.
Yet the latest tracks were found five to 11 miles from three other sites where the DNR has recovered evidence of cougars over the past 20 years.
At one site, the DNR got hair and blood from the bumper of a car that hit one of the big cats. Two other sites produced scat -- cougar poop -- found by researchers from the private Michigan Wildlife Federation. And the third yielded a piece of skull from a cat that may have been shot illegally.
In each case, lab tests said the material was from a cougar, although the cats were supposed to have been extirpated in Michigan 90 years ago.
I suppose it's possible that four of the cats wandered in from Minnesota or South Dakota. We know that radio-collared cougars with tracking devices have traveled hundreds of miles. But the odds of them repeatedly leaving traces in such a tiny area of the UP don't add up.
The Delta County tracks were found by Mike Zuidema, a retired DNR forester from Escanaba, who, for three decades, has been collecting evidence of cougar sightings in Michigan.
"The DNR won't say positively that even these tracks are from a cougar," Zuidema said this week. "They keep saying things like the tracks are from a very large cat that was 'most likely' a cougar. They won't list it as 'verified.' I guess they won't say for sure that we've got a cougar until somebody catches one."
Zuidema's efforts to confirm the existence of cougars in Michigan earned him the nickname Crazy Mike among some DNR biologists, but he had heard so many cougar stories from so many sensible, credible people that he was convinced that at least some must be real.
Zuidema filled notebooks with about 900 reports. Some clearly were fabrications, like the man who claimed to have seen a male and female cougar with their cubs. (A male cougar that came across a female and cubs would kill and eat them.) Others were hazy enough that the people might have seen a big dog, wolf or even a house cat.
But many sightings were made in good conditions and at such close range that the people couldn't have seen anything else but a huge cat that looked like a cougar. If only 10% of those sightings were real, it still added up to dozens of reliable reports.
It also intrigued Zuidema that many reports were clustered in small areas where people kept seeing cougars over decades.
There were even reports of females with cubs, usually seen by hunters in tree stands who were familiar with Michigan wildlife and unlikely to mistake a cougar for a bobcat at a range of 10 to 20 yards.
It suggested to Zuidema that a few cougars had survived the logging era in places that offered ideal habitat and where people didn't often go. When the Michigan Wildlife Federation investigated his claims, it took researchers little time to locate scat in places where Zuidema told them to look -- scat that DNA tests confirmed came from cougars.
This latest find proves that Zuidema is crazy like a fox and should spur the DNR to do a serious investigation this summer of the area where the tracks were seen. Adding to the possibility of cougars here is a recent, unquestionable sighting and DNA confirmation of a cougar in southern Wisconsin only 85 miles from Milwaukee and 100 from Chicago.
State wildlife managers need to push aside the animosity between them and the Michigan Wildlife Federation and enlist the aid of that group in finding evidence like scat, which can be subjected to DNA analysis and determine not only if we have cougars, but the family relationships between them.
That may cost a little, not something the DNR wants to hear. But its primary task is to protect, preserve and enhance the natural resources of this state, and there's no way to argue that the rarest animal in Michigan is not among them.
Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.