I came a cross a “Youtube” video that suggests a cougar in my area. I know the video is old, but I have always wondered if it was really a cougar, as it is hard to tell. I didn’t post this on “Inaturalist” because the video is not my own, so therefore it is not my observation. I would highly appreciate any feedback on this!
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Depends on your area. Possible or even likely in some places, not so much in others.
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Can you share the link?
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I totally forgot to paste the link! I am editing my post right now! So sorry!
Just edited it!
That’s clearly a domestic cat, other than size, proportions, length of tail, etc. you can also see red stripes on the tail and it’s doing some cat things.
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This looks like a domestic cat to me. In my experience cougars near people are far more alert.This cat is far more interested in what is near to its feet. Nothing suggests it is a cougar.
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I highly doubt it. I don’t believe they are that far south. I lived in the Novi Michigan area for decades hearing the sightings of cougars.
However there are cougars in northern Michigan. It took years of sightings ( and scat hunts) before the DNR agreed.
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The body proportions and behavior all indicate housecat. I’ve reviewed videos and still photos like this before and it’s interesting how, without good reference points in the image to determine size, they are often assumed to be a much larger cat such as a cougar. Many alleged black panthers in the US are almost certainly black housecats seen from a distance.
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Thank you for the input everyone! I highly appreciate it, as I had no clue before this post. It takes a lot of expertise to notice little hints that it is not a cougar, and I don’t have enough knowledge to tell the difference!
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If you’re on facebook you can join track identification group of @beartracker “Animals Don’t Cover Their Tracks”, apparently it’s a very common topic, so there’re many posts with photo comparisons and descriptions, so you can check them out!
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I know that there have been cougar sightings in Manitoba (Northern Southern Manitoba?), and perhaps the Boreal Forest area of Ontario. They seem to be rare, and elusive. Since I have never seen one, I yield to the information supplied above
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It’s never a cougar.
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until it is.
this one, though, is unquestionably an orange housecat. even with the terrible footage.
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Yeah, I don’t know what the people in the Youtube comments are on about. That’s a housecat. Possibly a big housecat, but it’s a housecat.
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100% domestic housecat
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By the way, the Michigan cougars are all male.
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Good video from Oklahoma on evaluating reported mountain lion sightings. It’s easy to see why mistakes can be made depending on the coloration, distance, etc. Apparently several state wildlife agencies have invested in a set of these silhouettes since it can be difficult to otherwise convince some in the public of what they likely saw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-LFfjGIBPQ&t=4s
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These silhouettes are pretty useful for assessing an observation and informing the public. I saw something similar used by Tennessee wildlife biologists although their cougar-sized model was painted black since a number of their reports are of large black cats, which might be black housecats or some other animal observed under poor light conditions. In my state (New Mexico), it’s a little trickier since there are rare verified records of jaguar here (although the black morph of jaguar doesn’t occur this far north) and we have a pretty large population of cougars along with bobcats. Many bobcats can be fairly spotted in pattern, so some jaguar reports might be of bobcats rather than the more similarly-sized cougar. Plus, young cougars can have a spotted pattern although nothing as prominent as a jaguar. And then there are the housecats seen wandering in rural areas … occasionally these have been reported as the similarly-sized jaguarundi, which doesn’t occur in my state. Sometimes you just can’t determine what the person saw given the various other possibilities.
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obviously not a cougar. it tis an orange cat.
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