MICHIGAN. (WPBN) – Last year was a historic year for cougar sightings in Michigan, and the Department of Natural Resources is investigating potential causes. <\/p>\n
Brian Roell, a wildlife biologist with the DNR, explained to WPBN on Wednesday<\/a> that Michigan was once a natural habitat for cougars, with the last known cougar killed in the eastern U.P. in the early 1990s. <\/p>\n \u201cMichigan was cougar habitat, including both peninsulas. The last known cougar to exist in Michigan was like 1906 or 1905. There was an animal killed in the eastern Upper Peninsula [that] was actually captured in a wolf trap,\u201d said Roell.<\/p>\n Cougars were confirmed back in the state in the late 2000s. Since then, the DNR has been monitoring them closely. <\/p>\n \u201c2008 is when we first identified cougars back in the state. Doesn\u2019t mean that the animals weren\u2019t coming prior to that. We probably did have some transient animals, but that confirmation didn\u2019t occur until 2008,\u201d said Roell.<\/p>\n Roell noted that the DNR is still utilizing between 1,200 and 1,300 cameras to estimate wildlife populations, including cougars. Roell says many cameras intended to capture other wildlife populations, but picked up cougars as well. <\/p>\n The increase in sightings is partly attributed to an increase in trail cams used by Michigan residents. <\/p>\n \u201cUsed to be kind of a luxury to have one, now there\u2019s many people that have multiple cameras,\u201d Roell said. \u201cWe had 31 different sightings. They represented like 34 or 35 cats because we had the kittens.\u201d<\/p>\n That is 11 more sightings than there were in 2024. <\/p>\n \u201cCertainly, I believe there [are] more cougars making it to our state. What we don\u2019t know now is are they staying here? It does appear we have some patterns in certain areas of the Upper Peninsula,\u201d Roell said.<\/p>\n A significant milestone was reached in 2025 when the DNR documented a cougar reproduction for the first time in many years<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a historic event because it\u2019s the first time within or well over a hundred years that reproduction has been documented east of the Mississippi,\u201d Roell said.<\/p>\n With the increase in sightings, Roell wants people to know that cougars are not as dangerous as some may think. <\/p>\n \u201cLightning strikes are far more dangerous. Just getting in your car and driving to work in the morning is far more dangerous in Michigan than the chance of getting attacked by a cougar. So I asked people, all wildlife has the potential to be dangerous. It doesn\u2019t have to have big claws and teeth. It could be the smallest animal. So just treat all wildlife with respect and give them their distance,\u201d Roell said.<\/p>\n The DNR encourages anyone who sees a cougar to report it through their web-based program<\/a>. There, photos can be submitted and reviewed by the DNR\u2019s cougar team. <\/p>\n The video above will feature the TV6 livestream<\/a> until staff can clip the corresponding story, if available, from broadcasts or other TV6 content. You can subscribe to our YouTube page<\/a> or download TV6+<\/a> to stream the latest local news and weather.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WLUC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MICHIGAN. (WPBN) – Last year was a historic year for cougar sightings in Michigan, and the Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[135082,4817,1746,1303,79,3102,201,211873],"class_list":["post-451956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-cougar-sightings","tag-cougars","tag-dnr","tag-michigan","tag-science","tag-sightings","tag-wildlife","tag-wpbn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451956","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=451956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}