Watching a deer run across the road is simply not that unusual up here. Let's face it; it’s probably not an event that is going to have you calling us for a Fact Finder. That is unless you know why that deer crossed the road.
"Thursday morning this week I was talking on the phone looking down at the blueberry patch and we saw a deer bounding across the street."
For Paul Bonaccini and his neighbors, seeing deer in their Old Mission Peninsula neighborhood is pretty usual event. But the way this deer bounded across the street made Paul take a closer look. That's when things crossed over into the unusual.
"Right behind was what looked to be a long black cat that was my view from this vantage point."
From his family room, Paul says he saw a graceful cat, slinking through a nearby blueberry patch. He says it didn't run like a dog, or lumber like a bear.
Paul says "It was big enough to scare me. It was right on the deer's backside. I don't know what it was I could assume and I don't cats that well but it looked to be a cougar or a panther."
I started going door to door to ask other neighbors if they had seen anything. I ended up about a mile north of Paul's house. A woman told me her horse was attacked five years ago. She says the DNR told her it was probably a fox or coyote. But her vet who treated says the damage to the horse came from a cougar.
Then an arrival in my email. Pictures from the same neighborhood on Old Mission accompanied with a question. Are they the prints of a cougar? Viewers wanted answers so I took the photos straight to the DNR's Wildlife Biologist who covers Grand Traverse County.
Rich Earle says "We probably average 1 a week at this office. Most calls there is no associated evidence that we can look at such a photographs of the animal photo of tracks, dropping, and carcasses, something we can actually pick and handle and make a decision about."
But this time, they had some evidence of something.
Rich told me "2 of the 4 pictures really didn't have enough detail to be of value. But 2 of them did have enough detail. The pictures are from members of the dog family. There they would not be a cougar but a member of the cat family."
So these are not from the paws of large cat, but Paul says they are also not the prints of what he saw. He says it wasn't a dog. The problem is viewers tell me they have seen something, but getting hard proof of exactly what they saw is what is really needed.
Rich says "generally when people have a sighting it’s impossible for me to look inside their head so while sightings are of interest, it’s really the tangible evidence that we need to look at to make a definitive identification."
And without that Rich Earle says whatever Paul and others have seen, it probably wasn't a cougar. He concluded "that would be very unlikely for one thing cougars maintain a very large home range, and the old mission peninsula has an area about 25 square miles that would be very confining to them. There are a lot of people living there, traffic, a naturally occurring animal would not seek that out as a place to live."
So what do you think? Could there be a cougar roaming around Northern Michigan and we wouldn't know about it? Have you seen any sign? Let me know.
Please leave a comment below.
To watch my complete unedited interview with Rich Earle, wildlife biologist with the DNR click here.
