Comparison of young and adult cougar in northern Minnesota

Update on the cougar kittens. To start off, this video shows what is almost certainly one of the kittens, who is now more than a year old, wandering down a logging road. About a month earlier, we captured the resident male who is almost certainly the father of the kittens on this same camera, which provides some perspective on size differences.

Anyway, we documented 3 kittens with their mom at a deer kill in late March. The kittens were estimated to be ~7-9 months old at the time meaning they would now be ~13-15 months old.

We have not captured an observation of multiple kittens together since that initial observation, though we have captured some videos like this of what appear to be young cougars (like the kittens) this summer.

In late June, someone captured video footage of 2 cougar kittens (and said they observed a 3rd that wasn’t in the footage) in our area but a sizable distance from where we first observed the kittens.

Seems most likely these are the same individuals as the size of the kittens was consistent with the ones we observed. However, cannot say with certainty they are the same individuals.

We have had consistent observations of cougars on trail cameras throughout the summer indicating resident individuals. And our goal is to capture as many observations of these cougars to understand how many are out there, if there are additional cougars other than the parents of the kittens and the 3 kittens, and to document any other evidence of reproduction should it occur.

If anyone in the area captures a photo or video of a cougar (or has photos or videos of ones from past years) or knows of someone who did, please share that with us if you are willing. We want to document all known observations of cougars in the area in hopes of determining where cougars are/have been, and to track changes through time if possible.

Written by Voyageurs Wolf Project