| Others claim that Michigan dogs can hunt cougars and can prove it if only given a chance. Dogs are routinely used to track and tree cougars in the West, but the Endangered Species Act prohibits tracking or training cougar tracking dogs in Michigan. One of the management procedures requested by Michigan Citizens for Cougar Recognition is a limited season for cougar tracking hounds. Houndsmen that are willing to assist in emergency situations could participate in the limited "trail only" season. One purpose of the season would be to obtain statistics about cougar numbers and locations. The primary objective would be to have trained cougar tracking dogs available across the State in the event of livestock or human attack. As the Baraga County news story below explains, loss of minutes can mean the difference in a successful track. |
| The UP cougar quest took a new twist last Thursday when DNR officials authorized the use of dogs to tail a large cat allegedly sighted by Melvin Myllyla near Pequaming. A delay between the sighting and receiving permission to track combined with hot, dry weather, however, yielded a fruitless two-hour effort approximately one mile south of the intersection of Aura and Pequaming roads. |
| DNR authorization, which came from Lansing from Forest Wildlife and Natural Heritage Section Leader John Hendrickson, amounted to an "unprecedented" move in the effort to secure physical evidence of the endangered, elusive cougar. Had a best-case scenario developed, the hounds would have treed a cougar for an "historic" first and photos would have accompanied this article. |
| "I'm unaware of any occasion where we've called in the dogs in the past," Acting District One Wildlife Biologist Rob Aho explained. "We're looking for good physical evidence - photos or credible witnesses." |
| Western UP residents have repeatedly sighted large animals resembling cougars (see May 15 SentinelI), but physical evidence, photographs, and multiple sightings of the same animal have remained out of grasp. Aho noted that cougar bones had been found in the southern UP in the mid-1980s, but they could have been planted. The cougar currently carries a threatened classification in the UP after virtual elimination by the late 1800s. |
| Sighting circumstances -- Myllyla, an Arnheim dairy farmer, glimpsed the large animal at 11:20 a.m. Thursday while hauling black dirt to Gary Willis, who operates the Pequaming Nursery with wife Laura. Myllyla estimated that the animal crossed Pequaming Road 500-600 feet south of the nursery's driveway. The animal bounded out of the bushes on the lake side of the road and scurried up a steep bank. |
| "It was brown - deer colored -- and with a long tail -- about three feet long with a curl," Myllyla explained. "This animal weighted about 200 pounds and I immediately figured it wasn't a coyote, wolf or fox." |
| "Right away I could see it was different," Myllyla continued. "It was sneaking close to the ground like a cat. It took a half a minute for me to realize what it was…It was the first time I saw one." |
| Myllyla breathlessly arrived at the nursery; Willis who has adopted cougar documentation as a pet project, responded with the idea of using dogs to track the animal. Because training dogs in the field is prohibited between April 15 and July 15, Willis sought DNR permission before inviting Rodger Cram and Don Johnson to the locale with their four radio-collar-equipped Plothounds. |
| Receiving DNR permission, however, entailed nearly a 90-minute delay. Willis first attempted to contact Aho at the DNR office in Baraga but received a busy signal for 30 minutes. Finally, Willis called Aho's wife Lynn at their home and she ran to the DNR office with the message. After touching base with Aho, Willis secured the green light from Hendrickson, the former District One wildlife biologist. |
| "I was so frustrated", Willis commented after the futile effort to find a scent trail. "I got ahold of Rodger (Cram) right away. If we could have the connections, we could have been out there by noon (instead of 1:45 p.m.)". |
| Early preseason-- For Cram and Johnson's hounds, Thursday's alleged cougar sighting provided a training opportunity six weeks earlier than normal. Cram apologized for his "three stooges" noting that their desire may have exceeded their physical readiness. |
| "They're rearing to go", Cram commented while unloading mom Sally, dad Butch, and son John. "They knew as soon as I started putting the tracker collars on them that something was up…They're out of shape though. They haven't seen any action since bear season." |
| Before Johnson pulled himself away from work at D&H Welding, Cram made several passes along Pequaming Road with his trio of hounds. Although the animals smelled something of interest, the warmth and evaporation had diffused the trail. Cram said that good conditions - cooler temperatures, rain and/or dew -- will maintain a trackable scent for 12-14 hours after an animal has been present. |
| "The scent starts to lift right up in the air, " Cram explained. "Conditions couldn't hardly be worse -- as dry as it is this late in the day..Sally could smell it on a log. They could all smell it, but not enough to run it. When the dogs lift their heads, the scent is in the air." |
| After 30 minutes, Johnson arrived with Jacob, John's brother. Hope rebounded briefly because Jacob possesses a "colder" nose capable of detecting older trails but he also failed to pinpoint a trail. |
| "There's no mistaking it when they hit it - whoosh," Johnson commented. "Even if it's cold, they'll track it. If they can smell it, they'll run it..It would be great if we could only get it up a tree!" |
| "Maybe the next time someone sights it, training season will be half over and they'll be in shape," Johnson continued. "We're going to have to go out to Montana and Wyoming to train these dogs on mountain lions!" |
| Don explained that the four hounds don't have experience with big cats, but their big game background would transfer to cougar tracking as soon as they inhaled a lung full of scent. Each year - training and hunting season - the foursome of hounds will tree 30-35 bear, Johnson added. |
| Despite two hours of beating the bushes along Pequaming Road, the dogs failed to find a good trail. The effort left everyone disappointed, but philosophical. "It's only a matter of time now," Willis commented on the eventual emergence of physical evidence for UP cougar. "Too many reliable people have seen them." |
| "You really need to know the status of them in order to protect them," DNR Endangered Species Coordinator Tom Weise explained last week's response to the alleged Pequaming cougar sighting. "It's very difficult to get good physical documentation. They're quite elusive. Tracking is one way to find out." |
| Weise said the use of dogs with tracker collars poses a minimal threat to all parties involved: cougar, people, and dogs. Unless cougars have had prior experience with dogs, they tree with relative ease. |
| "This approach is not intended to harm the animal," Weise noted. "If the tracking gets too intense, the dogs would have to back off." |
| Weise said collection of cougar specimen from the UP hasn't occurred since the late 1800s. On the other hand, the timber wolf, also listed as a threatened species, has yielded approximately 20 specimens during the last two decades due to road kills and shootings. |
| Collecting physical evidence would help unravel various puzzles. The eastern subspecies of cougar originally roamed the UP, Weise noted, but a possibility exists that some western cats have found their way this direction. Another theory of origins suggests that pet cougars may have been released. |
| Weise said the use of tracking dogs in response to UP cougar reports during the past few decades has occurred only once before. A retired DNR official in the eastern UP (and an avid bear hunter) tracked a reputed cougar and discovered a black bear. |
| Alleged cougar sightings occur so unexpectedly, that the lack of witnesses or photos encourages a skeptical approach by DNR officials. Some of the reports further undermine credibility. |
| District One Acting Wildlife Biologist Rob Aho told of one report by a motorist in the eastern UP. When asked to provide the location of the sighting, the person couldn't quite remember whether it had taken place near the intersection of M-77 and M-28 (near Seney) or where M-77 hits U.S. 2 near Blaney Park, 17 miles to the south! |
| A full copy of this article with photos can be obtained at the L'Anse Sentinel. A full copy would have been shown here but the copy I have is very poor. |
