ONTONAGON COUNTY, Mich,. (WPBN\/WGTU) — Nine months after two cougar kittens were first spotted in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula for the first time in over 100 years, new trail camera photos confirm the young animals are alive and still traveling with their mother, according to the Michigan DNR.<\/p>\n
The DNR verified a December 6, 2025, image from central Ontonagon County showing an adult cougar followed by two juveniles now believed to be about a year old.<\/p>\n
The sighting marks the first confirmed instance of cougar reproduction east of the Mississippi River in more than a century, according to the DNR.<\/p>\n
Cougars are extremely rare in Michigan, and past genetic testing has only identified adult males.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kittens\u2019 chances of survival are actually pretty high because just like bears, cougars invest a lot of their energy into their young,\u201d DNR Large Carnivore Specialist Brian Roell said. \u201cSo these kittens will stay with their mom through this winter and possibly even into next winter. They already have a leg up, seeing as how they\u2019ve been with her for a year now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the agency operating more than 1,300 trail cameras in the U.P., the family went undocumented since March, a gap Roell calls \u201ca mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Cougars remain endangered in Michigan, and it is illegal to hunt or harass them. The DNR urges the public to respect wildlife habitat and avoid disturbing the animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ONTONAGON COUNTY, Mich,. (WPBN\/WGTU) — Nine months after two cougar kittens were first spotted in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-357089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}