COUGAR!!! Phantom of Cascade Forest

A quiet morning fog blankets Cascade Forest, adding a mysterious, eerie touch to my hike.  In a muddy stretch of trail I notice the footprints of something large, probably a timberwolf.  The prints are filling with water as I stoop for a better read of them.  These tracks were just made.  I am not alone.  Suddenly I catch movement in a small grassy lea in front of me.  I stand upright just in time to glimpse a tawny, furry back slinking silently through the thigh-high grass before disappearing in the foggy spruces.
     My heart is pounding.  I run after it, hoping against hope for another, clearer glimpse, but alas the fog is too much, and I’m left standing in a silence broken only by my heavy breathing.
     Cougar?  Yes!  Cougar!!!  What a thrill!!!  I can’t wait to walk into Cascade Restaurant later today and announce in my perfect Minnesota English, “Yah, I seen me a cougar dismornen.”
     And why couldn’t I have?  Reports of cougar sightings in these parts have been multiplying in recent years.  Everyone knows someone here who’s seen a cougar, and the list of those who’ve actually had the thrill of a cougar encounter is growing.  Why can’t I, who spends so much time in the forest, be on that elite list too?
     It’s certainly within the realm of probability that a cougar or two exist in Cook County.  There’s enough wilderness and more than enough deer to sustain a cougar population here, and Minnesota does abut two other states–North and South Dakota–that have established cougar populations (albeit very small ones).    Stan Tekiela’s Mammals of Minnesota Field Guide lists cougars among our resident mammals, and a cougar was caught  in a deer hunter’s camera trap near Floodwood a couple years ago, although whether it was a wild specimen or an escaped pet is up for speculation.  We can certainly say at the very least that cougars could exist here.
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As the morning sun rises, my wild imagination dissipates with the fog.  Those fresh tracks I found surely had the telltale clawmarks of a canine;  I would have noticed if they hadn’t.  And the tawny, furry back I saw in the grass was probably more motley than tawny, with flecks of black.  I know that if I were to stand before an all-knowing God and recount my experience this foggy morning, I would tell God that it was in all likelihood a coyote, not a cougar, that I saw.
     The problem with all these cougar sightings is lack of hard evidence to lend credibility.  For all the exotic mammals seen in the forest, there is a wealth of evidence that precedes and procedes seeing them: tracks, scat, hair, etc.  For every bear, wolf, moose, marten, fisher and fox I’ve seen, I’ve seen the evidence of their existence many times over.
     Why should cougars be different?  Why can’t anybody find their tracks, their scat, a cougar-killed deer or bit of cougar hair?
     I want to believe that cougars exist here.  I want to believe it so much that a glimpse of a coyote on a foggy morning can so easily morph into a cougar sighting.  But I need to build my beliefs on evidence, and in the case of Cook County cougars, I’m sorry to say evidence is sorely lacking.
     A quiet autumn hike through Cascade forest , especially around sunup or sundown, is full of mammal sighting possibilities.  Red squirrels and white tailed deer are almost guaranteed.  Wolves are surprisingly abundant here, sometimes seen, occasionally heard singing their mournful songs.  You might see a black bear…or step in one of their soft black “calling cards” if you’re not careful.  Martens, fishers, and fox show up on our trails now and then.  You can watch beavers refurbishing their lodge on a nearby pond which is frequented by moose.  We’ve seen otter tracks on the upper reaches of Cascade River, and watched otters themselves swimming in Lake Superior, in front of the lodge.  Lek and I have seen all of these mammals on our hikes through Cascade Forest, and we’ve found their tracks, scat, and other evidence of their presence many more times.  With enough time, patience, and a bit of luck, any hiker in Cascade Forest will have the same inevitable mammal encounters.
     But a cougar?
     Maybe someday, cougar tracks will show up on a muddy trail.  Maybe some foggy morning somewhere in Cascade Forest, you or I will catch a glimpse of this magnificent mammal slinking away through the grass.  Until then, the cougar will remain the phantom of Cascade Forest.

Sawasdee-krup!
David Eklof