Many of the cougars confirmed in Minnesota have had captive origins. Released or escaped pets often cannot be distinguished from wild animals until they are killed or captured and then only if they have obvious indications of captivity (e.g., tattooed, de-clawed, or tame behavior). Some cougars have not had any apparent evidence of being in captivity and may have been truly wild. That may be the case with the car-killed cougar near Bemidji (September, 2009), though complete analysis has yet to be conducted.
The nearest known self-sustaining breeding population of cougars, estimated to number around 250, is in the Black Hills area of South Dakota (and to lesser extent, the North Dakota Badlands), several hundred miles from Minnesota. The only known population of cougars east of the Mississippi River is in Florida (i.e., the ‘Florida panther’), where perhaps 90 -100 wild animals continue to roam, In the mid-2000s, a cougar that was fitted with a radio collar in the Black Hills was later located with telemetry equipment on the Roseau River Wildlife Management Area in northwestern Minnesota. This animal was there for about seven weeks before disappearing. It is possible that additional animals dispersing from the Black Hills or other western areas enter Minnesota. Most animals confirmed in the Midwest in the past 15 years have been young males, the segment of a cougar population most likely to disperse in search of new territories. Once here, cougars are not restricted to territories by neighboring members of their species and therefore could move freely. While potential prey (e.g., deer) is abundant in Minnesota, dispersing cougars are not likely to stay in one area for long, instead continuing to search for suitable habitat with potential mates.
