Officials of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore have put a stuffed cougar on display in the park’s visitor center so people can compare an actual cougar to what some of them think they’ve seen elsewhere in the park.

LAKESHORE VISITORS may now view a "real"
cougar at the Sleeping Bear Dunes visitor center
in Empire. On loan from Michigan State University,
the stuffed cougar may help visitors identify what
they actually see in the wild at the park.

The last reported wild cougar was taken in the Upper Peninsula near Newberry in 1906, according to a news release from the National Park Service.

“Despite this, there have been numerous reports of cougar sightings throughout the Lower Peninsula and the Lakeshore during the past several years. National Park Service biologists, however, have been unable to verify even one report with physical evidence,” officials said.

The mount on display in the Lakeshore Visitor Center in Empire is on temporary loan from Michigan State University.

“We are pleased to not only be able to display one of Michigan’s historic predators, but perhaps also to provide an educational tool so that visitors have a basis upon which to evaluate these reported observations,” Lakeshore superintendent Dusty Shultz was quoted as saying. “We are grateful to Michigan State University for loaning us the mount through the end of this year.”

From November 2004 through April 2005, park officials said, researchers conducted studies on more than 150 miles of roads and trails that crossed through all major habitat types in the Lakeshore, utilizing three methods to attempt to document cougar presence: remote motion-sensing camera systems; track surveys; and investigations of reported observations of cougars or their sign. These methods have been used in numerous studies elsewhere to assess cougar presence, according to the news release.

Although the six months of intensive study did not yield any physical evidence to support the reported presence of cougars in the park, sightings continue to persist. National Lakeshore biologists maintain a database or reported cougar sightings and investigate them as quickly as possible, officials said.