Woman says she saw big black cat
By BOB GROSS , Of The Daily Oakland Press
01/10/2004
January 10, 2004
WHITE LAKE TWP. - Beverly Immel is still excited about the large black cat she saw from her office window in December.
"It was solid black, and he was a big boy," said Immel, general manager of Independence Village of White Lake. "I'm talking a 150-pound animal, and I have to tell you he was my Christmas present. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"He was gorgeous. It was right out my window, my manager's window here."
The animal that padded softly out of the trees bordering the retirement community on Union Lake Road was definitely a feline, she said.
"He had a long tail, kind of just like my domestic cat at home, only on steroids," Immel said.
About five people saw the large black cat that December day, said Immel; the facility's maintenance man saw it the next day.
Dennis Fijalkowski, director of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy in Bath, believes there are 50 to 80 cougars roaming Michigan - and, despite a well-publicized report of an incident in September 2003 where a cougar supposedly stalked a woman in Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, people have little to fear from them.
That said, the conservancy did print a brochure, "Living with Cougars in Michigan," to try to keep human-cougar encounters to a minimum.
"The people of Michigan currently are ill-prepared for a wild cougar population," Fijalkowski said. "One of our objectives is to bring them up to speed on these cougars as soon as possible."
He said the situation in Michigan is in no way analogous to California where a bicyclist was attacked Thursday and another may have been killed.
"A wild cougar population that has lots to eat ... is absolutely no threat to humans," he said. "In over 200 years of recorded history in our state there's never been a recorded attack on a human."
Michigan has a white-tailed deer population of about 1.7 million, providing plenty of prey for any cougars that might be out there. California has 4,000 to 6,000 cougars, and some are in areas where humans are starting to encroach.
Fijalkowski said California is also in a five-year drought and that has affected the number of prey animals for cougars.
The cat implicated in the California attack was about 110 pounds, small for an adult cougar, which can reach 200 pounds.
"My guess is it's a two-year-old male who is not proficient at killing deer yet and was hungry," Fijalkowski said.
The wildlife conservancy issued cougar management recommendations last spring. Among them are recommendations for hunting if the population increases to where it's feasible; for removing problem cats such as one in Cheboygan County that has killed two horses; and for running cats with hounds, but not killing them, to condition them to fear people.
"We should be erring on the side of caution," Fijalkowski said. "If there is any potential to do risk-aversion conditioning with cougars, then we should be doing it."
The sighting in White Lake Township is just the latest in a string of reports of "black panthers" that goes back at least to 1951 in Addison Township. Since then, large black cats - or animals believed to be cats - have been spotted in Wixom and Milford, Commerce, Independence and Waterford townships.
In the 1980s, at least 100 sightings were reported of a large black cat in western Oakland and eastern Livingston counties - one entrepreneur went so far as to print up T-shirts celebrating the animal as well as bumper stickers with the legend, "I Brake for Panthers."
Immel called White Lake Township police and Oakland County Animal Control after she spotted the lanky black cat prowling through the rain.
"Several people reported seeing a large black cat," said Lt. Ed Harris. "It was described as having a round bowling ball type head with pointed ears.
"The officers that responded to the area were able to see large tracks, but because of the rain they weren't able to preserve them," he said. "They had a strong feeling that the people were accurate with what they saw."
He said the township police have not had any more reports of large black cats.
Patrick Rusz, a wildlife biologist for the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, has done research as to whether cougars are resident in Michigan - the official line is that the last of the big cats was killed in 1906 in the Upper Peninsula. He said it's possible that the animal Immel saw is one that was previously sighted in Livingston County. Children in the Howell School District were not allowed outside school buildings after one such sighting.
"I've heard that description many times of that cat down there," he said.
That the two animals could be one and the same is "what I suspect," he said, "but exactly what's going on we don't know.
"And that's our whole point: We think there's enough evidence that there should be some research done."
Rusz and Fijalkowski contend that the official line, that cougars were extirpated in Michigan, is wrong. They believe that a remnant population was able to hang on in remote parts of the state.
"Despite what you might have read in the newspapers and on the Internet, there is absolutely no doubt there are cougars roaming around in northern Michigan," Rusz said.
The wildlife conservancy has gathered reports of sightings, photographs, plaster casts of pawprints and DNA evidence from cougar scat - droppings - found in Michigan. Rusz said the cougar population in the Lower Peninsula is probably less than 50, but at least three of those animals call Sleeping Bear Dunes their home.
"There's absolutely no doubt that there's a cougar there, probably two or three of them," he said. "The evidence is that there have been cougars there continuously for probably about 30 years."
In September 2003, a volunteer at Sleeping Bear came face to face with a cougar on a hilly section of a walking trail, according to published reports. The animal reportedly followed her for 20 minutes.
Rusz said even his harshest critics acknowledge the presence of cougars at Sleeping Bear and other places. Their usual explanation, however, is the animals are pets that were illegally dumped in the woods.
That's the standard explanation for the black panthers of southeastern Michigan - that they're cougars or jaguars that someone had as an illegal pet that grew too large to be handled.
"In general, I don't buy that argument," Rusz said.
He said he's not aware of any black panthers or cougars in captivity in North America and knows of only two documented black cougar carcasses, one in Brazil and one in Costa Rica, as well as one carcass in Colorado that was not well-documented.
Cougars do, however, have a gene that could cause melanism - dark coloration of the fur.
"The black phase does not show up in healthy populations with a lot of individuals," he said. "It only shows up where there is a lot of inbreeding."
He points to an isolated population of black bobcats in Florida as an example of melanism at work in the wild.
"In Michigan, according to my theory, we have a population that is very small and subject to inbreeding so the potential is here for black cougars to show up occasionally," he said.
There are black leopards and black jaguars in the wild, but Rusz doubts that the animals seen in Oakland County over the years are either of those two species.
"I don't know of any black leopards or black jaguars in captivity in the Midwest," he said.
It's illegal to keep large cats in Michigan - and has been for several years - so he also doubts that the animals are pets released after having outgrown their quarters.
"There's just not a pool of all these cats around like everyone thinks," he said.
It is possible that the animals seen from time to time in southeastern Michigan are actually transients from the northern part of the Lower Peninsula, he said. That may also explain the normal color phase cougar spotted in September 2003 in Wayne County's Van Buren Township.
"It'll show up here and there periodically, but the nature of the beast is not to stay in one spot for any period of time," he said.
One or both of the cougars might also have come up from Ohio, where the laws regarding captive large predators are different, said Rusz. There have been documented cougar tracks in the Toledo area, he said.
Because of sightings, encounters and mounting evidence of cougar populations, the National Park Service actually has posted signs at Sleeping Bear warning visitors that they are in "Cougar Habitat."
Rusz predicts the big cats are going to stick around.
"I'm going to bet you this isn't the last time you hear about big cats in Oakland County," he said.
As for Beverly Immel, well she just wishes she had the presence of mind to remember the camera in her desk that December day.
"I was so excited that I didn't take the picture," she said. "We were so excited that we just went crazy."
The chances are extremely low that you will ever come face to face with a cougar in Michigan - the state covers more than 37 million acres and the cougar population at best is 50 to 80, according to estimates by the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy. If you do encounter a large cat - or even a large threatening dog - here are some things to do:
Don't hike alone, make noise to avoid surprising an animal and carry a sturdy walking stick.
Don't jog alone, carry repellent such as pepper spray and have a noisemaker such as a whistle. Jogging with a dog might actually trigger an attack; cougars see dogs as prey.
Face the cougar and stand upright. Try not to bend over to pick up a stick or stone.
Make yourself big. Raise your arms and open your jacket.
Keep children close and pick them up. Tell them not to run.
Do not approach a cougar.
Back away slowly. Running may stimulate the cougar's instinct to chase and attack.
If the cougar approaches, throw stones, branches or anything you can pick up without crouching or turning your back. Wave your arms and speak firmly.
Fight back if the cougar presses the attack. Stay on your feet and use whatever you can.
For information about cougars in Michigan, call the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy at (517) 641-7677 or visit the group's Web site at
http://www.miwildlife.org .Source: Michigan Wildlife Conservancy
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