Cougar attacks? Mystery of the cougar continues in Osceola County - WITH VIDEO

Jeff Broddle | Cadillac News Deb Merriss believes her horse, Annie, was attacked by a cougar at her home near Ashton. Three to four sighting reports come in each month to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Baldwin Field office, but there are opinions on both sides as to whether cougars exist in Michigan.

It was a routine day on the Merriss homestead in southwest Osceola County. Deb Merriss was tackling chores when things took a twist for the unusual.

“I went out to brush the horses and I noticed a paw print on one of them,” she said.

She speculated a large animal had broken the skin on the horse's right hind leg and immediately suspected it was the victim of a cougar attack.

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“One of the other horses had a couple of scratches. After seeing the paw print, I figured she chased it out of the pasture because she'll run out a stray dog.”

Merriss scoured the area for cougar tracks and found none, yet she remains convinced her horse tangled with one of the big cats. Like many others, she believes cougars roam the area.

Three to four sighting reports come in each month to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Baldwin Field office, according to wildlife biologist Larry Smith.

“If there is physical evidence, scat or prints, we try to confirm it (the sighting),” Smith said. “We have not confirmed anything cougar related.”

Jeff Greene, wildlife biologist at the Paris DNR Field Office receives a cougar sighting report about once a month.

“I have had physicians, a judge - people I believe have integrity - tell me they have seen cougars from their vehicles,” Greene said.

The department seriously considers the reports and records whatever information is available. But in Greene's 34 years with the DNR there has been no confirmed evidence produced, he said.

“I worked at a check station south of Big Rapids Nov. 17, 18 and 19 and did not have any hunters report any cougar sightings,” he said. “We checked 760 deer and I talked to about one-third of the hunters.”

Greene concludes Michigan does not have a breeding cougar population.

“Basically there is nothing the department can do to manage them if they exist,” he said. “If we have a half-dozen animals out there what would we do?”

The Baldwin Field Office has received only one reported sighting since the opening of deer season, Smith said. There lies the mystery.

“With people crawling around the woods everywhere you would think they would find a dead (cougar) carcass, or other evidence,” Smith said.

Public sightings are not isolated to Michigan. Across the Midwest there has been an increase in reported cougar sightings, according to Ray Rustem, supervisor for the DNR Natural Heritage Unit.

“In Missouri they set up a task force that went out to every sighting,” Rustem said. “Of those, more than 90 percent could be documented as something other than a cougar.”

In Western states where cougar populations exist, carcasses and road kill are documented, he said.

The last known wild cougar taken from Michigan was near Newberry in 1906. In 2004 a hair sample collected from a vehicle bumper in Menominee County identified the sample as cougar. A study by Central Michigan University and the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, also based on DNA testing, showed samples from eight locations tested positive for cougars.

In October, the DNR launched a cougar Web site to address public concerns.

“The issue of whether or not there are cougars in the state raised enough interest we thought we should get the information out about what we know about cougars,” Rustem said.

A question remains surrounding the origin of the confirmed cougars. With cougars known to travel as far as 600 miles, the cougars sighted in Michigan could be transient animals from known breeding populations in other states or they could be escaped or released pets, according to Rustem.

sbarber@cadillacnews.com | 775-NEWS (6397)