Yeah, this is definitely a house cat, no doubt, proportions are totally out of sense for a cougar. Just one of those fat, orange cats.
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From the video itself I agree it’s a domestic cat for all of the reasons given by others. The other difficult is the location which is basically surrounded by many kilometers of intense agriculture, dense urban development. and open water. It would to have to have been smuggled into the site.
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Documentation of that? When I lived in MI in the late aughts, I recall a particular observation somewhere between Detroit and Toledo (can’t remember what side of the border it was) of an adult and a kitten that was ultimately confirmed by the state. Pretty sure that male cougars can’t produce young on their own.
freep.com. Detroit Free Press article written by Keith Matheny December 30,2021.
Cougar sightings in Michigan are all males: why we don’t see females, kittens
I don’t know how to link it.
Appreciate documentation on your observation regarding female and kitten as well.
This one is definitely an orange housecat, I’m going to comment on the video and explain it
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I replied but forgot to use reply arrow.
I wish I kept track of it better. It was so long ago that I saw the footage (somewhere around 15yrs ago now) that I forgot a lot and only have a vague idea of the location (not sure if it was on the MI or OH side of the border). I also moved away from the area, so any subsequent reports probably wouldn’t have caught my attention (such as if it was later determined that the animals were escapees or released from captivity). My google-fu is lacking to force it to show older articles (lovely search algorithms push more recent articles).
CougarNet doesn’t show this sighting, but it appears that the stuff on their map hasn’t been updated in quite some time.
The Cougar Network - Using Science to Understand Cougar Ecology
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