Evidence of reproducing cougar population in Minnesota

For the first time in more than 100 years, evidence of cougars reproducing in Minnesota was documented in video captured by the University of Minnesota’s Voyageurs Wolf Project (youtu.be/7EL1FRB11DU). The videos, shared with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources by the project researchers, show a female cougar with three large kittens.

The high-quality video shows the kittens up close and feeding south of Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. The Voyageurs Wolf Project has deployed hundreds of trail cameras in northeast Minnesota to help with wolf research. Those cameras have recorded footage of lone cougars eight times since 2023, but none of those cameras had recorded footage of kittens. The videos of the cougar with kittens were captured by two cameras that researchers placed over a GPS-collared deer they suspected a cougar might have killed.

“Looking at the footage was and still is surreal. We never anticipated seeing four cougars together in northern Minnesota,” said Thomas Gable, project lead of the Voyageurs Wolf Project. “In total, we captured around four hours of footage of this cougar family at the kill, and it was fascinating to see and hear their interactions — the mother grooming her kittens, the kittens growling and hissing at each other. We feel incredibly fortunate we were able to capture such a wild moment in such detail.”

“Based on traits observed in the video, we estimate the kittens to be 7-9 months old, so born last fall,” said John Erb, research biologist with the Minnesota DNR. “The only other confirmed kittens in Minnesota turned out to be captive escapees and involved a female with two kittens that showed up and hung around a homeowner’s porch in 2001.”

Cougars were native to Minnesota before becoming locally extinct. There hasn’t been evidence of reproduction for more than 100 years in the eastern Midwest (east of the Dakotas and Nebraska) until recent reports from Michigan and now Minnesota. However, detections of individual adult cougars, most commonly wandering males, are now unsurprising across Minnesota and the western two thirds of the Midwest. Cougars can travel more than 40 miles in a day, and, to date, cougars documented in Minnesota appear to have all been transient animals from western South Dakota, North Dakota, or Nebraska.  

“Although this is an important starting point for potential population establishment in Minnesota, predicting the future is extremely difficult,” Erb said. “These kittens might not survive, potentially getting killed by wolves, a male cougar or vehicles. They may also become part of the founding catalyst for a slow but steady increase in numbers. Time will tell, but we are clearly nearing a point where the probability of a self-sustaining population has increased.”