{"id":283961,"date":"2025-11-15T04:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283961\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T04:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T04:18:09","slug":"cougar-makes-rare-appearance-in-manitoba-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/283961\/","title":{"rendered":"Cougar makes rare appearance in Manitoba \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cougar made a rare appearance on a trail camera in the Whiteshell Provincial Park.<\/p>\n

The cougar slowly walked forward and stopped briefly to sniff the camera. The image was captured on video on Oct. 28 at 4:50 a.m.<\/p>\n

Danny Alexander, who posts videos of bears, wolves, deer and other animals roaming around the Whiteshell, east of Winnipeg, on his dannyboy_wildlife social media accounts, said he was thrilled to virtually \u201cbag\u201d a cougar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was absolutely shocked when I saw it,\u201d Alexander said on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA cougar was high on my list of wildlife I wanted to capture. Of all the animals I\u2019ve captured, I\u2019ve never captured a moose, wolverine and cougar. The cougar was the last I thought I would get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sean Johnson-Bice, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Manitoba, said spotting a cougar in Manitoba is \u201ca rare sighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so rare that the frequency is still infrequent, but they are increasing in frequency over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson-Bice is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota who studies arctic and red foxes. He has worked with the Voyageurs Wolf Project in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

He said the animal likely came from a permanent cougar population in either Saskatchewan or North or South Dakota and made its way to the eastern side of Manitoba.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no evidence yet that cougars have established a breeding population in Manitoba or are permanent residents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost are individuals which are dispersing and are looking to find a new home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson-Bice said most suspected cougar sightings turn out to involve a bobcat or Canada lynx. In this case, the video clearly depicts a cougar.<\/p>\n

Cougars are Canada\u2019s largest wildcat: a male can be as long as two metres and weigh more than 60 kilograms.<\/p>\n

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Dannyboy_Wildlife<\/p>\n

A cougar \u2014 caught by a trail camera \u2014 prowls in the Whiteshell Provincial Park on Oct 28 at 4:50 a.m.<\/p>\n

Johnson-Bice said historically cougars roamed from northern Canada down to Patagonia, the southern tip of South America, but in North America, its territory has shrunk to the western parts of Canada and the United States, as well as Florida, where it is known as a panther.<\/p>\n

He said this sighting in Manitoba shows the big cat is slowly moving eastward; a breeding population was found earlier this year in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s the first time in 100 years a breeding population has been documented there and it is the most eastward breeding of mountain lions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander, a Steinbach resident, set up his first trail camera shortly after buying a cottage in the Whiteshell in 2019. He has erected 40 of them on trails throughout the park. He posts what he sees on his social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Tik Tok.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have 82,000 followers on Tik Tok,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to bring a bit of balance to all this craziness in the world. I think I\u2019ve scared all of my neighbours now because before this they would only see deer. This has opened their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alexander said he has to hike to the locations to retrieve the smart cards from the cameras. He went out earlier this week and got the card with the footage of the cougar.<\/p>\n

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Kevin<\/p>\n

Kevin Rollason
Reporter
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Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until\u00a01988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press\u2019s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cougar made a rare appearance on a trail camera in the Whiteshell Provincial Park. The cougar slowly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-283961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}