Researchers who have tracked and studied wolf packs in northern Minnesota for years turned up something unexpected last month on one of their trail cameras: a mountain lion.
The big cat walks along a state forest road in video captured Oct. 20 about 10 miles south of Voyageurs National Park.
The crew is used to seeing wildlife on their cameras and even the occasional oddity, like the enormous fat bear that waddled along late last year.
But a mountain lion? For a "cryptic" predator like that to turn up in one instance in video pulled from 200 trail cameras used by researchers makes the sighting special, said Tom Gable, project leader of the Voyageurs Wolf Project.
"You don't expect that that animal is going to be on there," he added.
Gable also said the singular video among so much data runs counter to speculation from some people that there are breeding populations of the large predator that haven't been acknowledged. "There would be more observations through time," he said.
According to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' website, the agency has verified 59 mountain lion sightings in the state since 2004, while receiving reports of sightings every year.
In the context of the wolf researchers' rare find, the mountain lion moving down the road likely fits the mold of others that have shown up in Minnesota: young cats passing through from points west.
Gable and his staff know residents in the area who separately captured trail cam images of a cougar Oct. 18 and 19 in Kabetogama and Ray townships, respectively.
"I don't think it is a coincidence that you have these two sightings [in addition to Oct. 20] … it was evidence of one moving through," he said.
