Cougar sightings reported in Bearinger Township

At one time, spotting a cougar in Michigan ranked alongside Elvis and UFO sightings. But over the years, that has changed. More people have come forward to report seeing the animals in the area.

Norm Aubrey of Millersburg is one such person. He was traveling on Town Hall Highway in November 2005, and had made a left turn at Black Mountain, when he saw an animal run across the road from left to right.

?It had a long tail that was curved at the end,? said Aubrey. ?There is no question about what I saw.?

LOCAL COUGAR enthusiast Aaron Veselenak of Rogers City, who has interviewed more than 100 people about sightings and possible tracks in Presque Isle County learned about it and visited Aubrey. He showed Aubrey five silhouettes of animals.

One was selected ? the one with a cougar on it. Aubrey had been traveling with a companion that day. Both men looked at each other and asked themselves ?did we see what I think we saw,? said Aubrey.

During his extensive interviews, Veselenak says northern Presque Isle County has not been a hot bed for sightings, but do not tell Shari McLennan of Rogers City that. She had a remarkable sighting a few months ago.

McLennan has driven a stretch of US-23 from Rogers City to Cheboygan for more than 13 years and knows what coyotes and bobcats look like. Her brother, Randy Herbek, is a taxidermist, so she is familiar with the native animals.

What McLennan saw on a well-lit August night in 2006 was an animal of ?remarkable size.? She is sure it was a cougar. McLennan was driving home from work at about 6:30 p.m. when the animal ran 30 to 40 yards in front of her vehicle. Using huge strides, the cougar ran from the Lake Huron side into the tall, unmowed grass on the other side of the road. ?I knew immediately what it was,? said McLennan.

THE SIGHTING was on US-23, just past an open area where there are no houses on the Lake Huron side, yet near White Tails Unlimited. McLennan slowed her vehicle and backed up to the spot where she saw it run across the road. The animal stood in the ditch with its head poking above the tall grass. She saw the animal?s ?gold eyes? staring back at her. It was there for two to three seconds and then gone.

?I definitely think she saw one,? said Veselenak. ?She was lucky.? Veselenak has a feature article in this month?s ?Michigan History? (January/February edition) magazine about cougars. Veselenak said they are difficult to track and document, but he believes there are three to four in the county.

UNLESS VESELENAK, or anybody else for that matter, has physical evidence, do not expect the Department of Natural Resources to investigate.

That does not mean the DNR does not concede their existence. In October, the DNR launched a website with up-to-date scientific information regarding the big cats.

“The DNR recognizes the potential for the presence of cougars is alarming to many Michigan citizens. Providing information about cougars on our web site is an important first step in educating the public,” said DNR director Rebecca A. Humphries. ”

Cougars originally were native to Michigan, but were extirpated from the midwest around the beginning of the 20th Century. The last known wild cougar taken in Michigan occurred in 1906 near Newberry.

Dr. Patrick Rusz, who serves as director of the wildlife program for Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, believes ?there is a small population of cougars in Michigan and they were left over from the original population.?

According to the DNR, there have been periodic reports of cougar sightings since that time from various locations throughout the state.

VESELENAK SAID they eat virtually anything and that includes porcupines. There also have been reports in the western part of the country of people being attacked.

There were some penned up goats attacked on a Six Mile highway farm in Allis Township. A spokesman from the Presque Isle County Sheriff?s Department said the attack could have come from a

wild dog, wolf, or a coyote. How about cougar? The only prints left in the mud were what appeared to be dog prints.

Sightings of cougars may be reported online at www.michigan.gov/dnr under “Wildlife and Habitat,” then “Viewing Wildlife.”

Veselenak believes someone needs to document a sighting with physical evidence to verify the presence in Presque Isle County. That could be from a camera, tracks, or cougar feces.

Rusz believes the presence of cougars in Presque Isle County is a foregone conclusion as DNA tests on scat have proven their existence in the county.

Local residents such as McLennan, Aubrey, or even Robert Tulgestke, who believes he saw a rare black cougar a few years ago near Hawks, do not need physical evidence; they have seen the animals with their own eyes.

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