Cougar makes rare appearance in Manitoba

A cougar made a rare appearance on a trail camera in the Whiteshell Provincial Park.

The cougar slowly walked forward and stopped briefly to sniff the camera. The image was captured on video on Oct. 28 at 4:50 a.m.

Danny Alexander, who posts videos of bears, wolves, deer and other animals roaming around the Whiteshell, east of Winnipeg, on his dannyboy_wildlife social media accounts, said he was thrilled to virtually “bag” a cougar.

“I was absolutely shocked when I saw it,” Alexander said on Friday.

“A cougar was high on my list of wildlife I wanted to capture. Of all the animals I’ve captured, I’ve never captured a moose, wolverine and cougar. The cougar was the last I thought I would get.”

Sean Johnson-Bice, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Manitoba, said spotting a cougar in Manitoba is “a rare sighting.”

“It is so rare that the frequency is still infrequent, but they are increasing in frequency over time.”

Johnson-Bice is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota who studies arctic and red foxes. He has worked with the Voyageurs Wolf Project in Minnesota.

He said the animal likely came from a permanent cougar population in either Saskatchewan or North or South Dakota and made its way to the eastern side of Manitoba.

“There’s no evidence yet that cougars have established a breeding population in Manitoba or are permanent residents,” he said.

“Most are individuals which are dispersing and are looking to find a new home.”

Johnson-Bice said most suspected cougar sightings turn out to involve a bobcat or Canada lynx. In this case, the video clearly depicts a cougar.

Cougars are Canada’s largest wildcat: a male can be as long as two metres and weigh more than 60 kilograms.

Johnson-Bice said historically cougars roamed from northern Canada down to Patagonia, the southern tip of South America, but in North America, its territory has shrunk to the western parts of Canada and the United States, as well as Florida, where it is known as a panther.

He said this sighting in Manitoba shows the big cat is slowly moving eastward; a breeding population was found earlier this year in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

“That’s the first time in 100 years a breeding population has been documented there and it is the most eastward breeding of mountain lions.”

Alexander, a Steinbach resident, set up his first trail camera shortly after buying a cottage in the Whiteshell in 2019. He has erected 40 of them on trails throughout the park. He posts what he sees on his social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Tik Tok.

“I have 82,000 followers on Tik Tok,” he said. “I’m happy to bring a bit of balance to all this craziness in the world. I think I’ve scared all of my neighbours now because before this they would only see deer. This has opened their eyes.”

Alexander said he has to hike to the locations to retrieve the smart cards from the cameras. He went out earlier this week and got the card with the footage of the cougar.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca