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Michigan sees record cougar reports in 2025

A cougar picked up on a Michigan Department of Natural Resources trail camera in 2023. Last year, the department confirmed a record number of cougar reports since the big cats were first wiped out of the state in the early 1900s. Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Editor note: This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan��(bridgemi.com), a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from Bridge Michigan, sign up for a free Bridge Michigan newsletter ��().” 

by Laura Herberg (Bridge Magazine)

Cougars were detected 31 times in Michigan in 2025, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

That the highest number of confirmed observations since the predator was wiped out of the state in the early 1900s. And the count is expected to increase.

“That number will go up once we get our DNR cameras in there, as well,” said Brian Roell, a large carnivore specialist with the department. “There like 6 million images to go through.”

Cougars — also known as mountain lions or pumas — are tan or gray “big cats” that can be as long as 8 feet and weigh up to 180 pounds. The large predators used to inhabit Michigan but disappeared after being over-hunted.

Then, the DNR started confirming their presence in the state about 20 years ago, but the biologists thought the animals were just passing through. This year, cougar cubs were discovered in the state, which means at least one cougar family is raising babies in Michigan.

“The presence of a large carnivore reestablishing really demonstrates that the conditions have changed that have allowed that animal to return,” said Byron Weckworth, a chief conservation and advocacy officer with the national nonprofit the Mountain Lion Foundation. “Hopefully, what follows is that the human presence there is going to embrace that and seek to find the right ways to coexist.”

While confirmed cougar reports in Michigan are higher than they’ve been in more than 100 years, that doesn’t mean that the number of cougars in the state definitely increased last year.

“You’ve got to take that all with a little bit of a grain of salt,” said Roell, the DNR biologist.

It hard to know whether there are more cougars or just more ways to spot them. Trail cameras posted by the DNR and private residents are becoming more and more prevalent, which makes it easier to detect cougars.

And, while there were 31 confirmed reports of cougars in Michigan last year, some of which involved multiple cougars (which is  counts 34 sightings for 2025), that doesn’t mean there were 30-plus cougars in the state.

Male cougars are extremely territorial and two land owners located near each other accounted for nine of the 31 reports. Roell suspects that means “we had a very active cat close to these two landowners.”

Still, he does believe there are more cougars entering the Upper Peninsula, though the DNR doesn’t know exactly how many.

For decades, there were no confirmed cougar reports in Michigan. That changed in 2008, when the DNR confirmed cougar paw prints in the UP, followed by two other observations, also verified by tracks, later that year. Since then, the number has generally trended upward, with 20 observations in 2024, some of which involved multiple cougars.

The DNR knows from DNA that male cougars have been here in the last two decades, but officials weren’t sure about females. Because male cougars will roam long distances to find females, officials assumed the animals observed in Michigan were just passing through.

That changed early last year, when two cougar cubs were . Nine months later in December, two slightly older cubs were spotted with an adult female on a residents’ trail camera.

A cougar family had started in Michigan.

“This is the first time that there been reproduction verified east of the Mississippi in well over 100 years, and possibly even east of the Missouri River,” Roell said. “So that exciting.”

Amy Trotter was the CEO of Michigan United Conservation Clubs back in March, when news of the cubs came out. She told Bridge at the time that her group members have . In that sense, she said, the cub sighting was “exciting and intriguing,” but it wasn’t necessarily surprising.

“It validating what hunters have suspected for a number of years,” she said.

The last confirmed cougar sighting in Michigan happened on Dec. 14. None have been confirmed yet in 2026. That means the two cubs haven’t been seen in over a month.

“We hope they’re still alive. I assume they are, but obviously we don’t have knowledge of that,” Roell said. In addition to possibly turning up more adult cougar sightings, analyzing the DNR remaining trail camera footage may show additional images of the cubs, indicating where they were between their first and second sightings — a nine-month spread — as well as where they might have gone since they were last spotted in December.

Because cougars are on Michigan endangered mammals list, hunting them or even just trying to locate them is illegal.

“Too much human pressure can also trigger the female cougar to abandon her cubs,” Roell said in a release after the cubs were spotted in December. “As with all wild animals, we’re asking the public to respect their habitat and allow them to live naturally in their home.”

Cougars are thought to be very shy and generally a low threat to humans. Still, attacks do occasionally happen. On Jan. 1, a woman hiking in Colorado was . It was the first fatal attack by a cougar in the state .

If you see a cougar in the wild you should make yourself big, make a lot of noise, throw sticks or rocks at it and don’t run away. Back away from it while still looking at it.

If you see or photograph a cougar or find tracks or scat, you can report it online on the DNR .

by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.