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“I received the chills immediately, simply fascinated about how simply I might have been standing there”

After pouncing on the deer and killing it, the cougar drags the deer off into the woods. Photographs courtesy of Eli Schaefer; picture composite by Out of doors Life

A 24-year-old deer hunter who lives on Michigan’s Higher Peninsula captured some unimaginable path digicam footage there in late December. The video clips that Eli Schaefer shared with Out of doors Life (under) present a mountain lion with its jaws locked round a struggling whitetail deer’s neck, after which dragging the deer off into the woods. Wildlife consultants with the Michigan Division of Pure Sources consider it’s the primary time that anybody within the state has captured video footage of a cougar within the act of killing a deer. However Schaefer says he virtually deleted the clips earlier than he noticed them on Jan. 6.

Deer season had closed 4 days prior, so Schaefer was pulling all his path cameras out of the Keweenaw Peninsula Forest the place he hunts. The big swath of public land is positioned close to Toivola. He explains that this explicit path digicam was setup alongside a deer path roughly 100 yards from his stand.    

“I received residence that day to place all my gear away, and at first, I used to be simply gonna delete the playing cards,” Schaefer says. “However I made a decision to shoot by means of them simply to see if any [good bucks] survived the season.”

That’s when he seen a nonetheless {photograph} of a giant cat. Clicking on the preview, he realized it was truly a collection of two movies that confirmed the cougar in motion.  

“So, I performed it, and I used to be like, oh my God,” he provides. “I received chills immediately, simply fascinated about how simply I might have been standing there, and that factor might’ve jumped on me.”

Schaefer was much more excited as a result of he believes the cougar within the video is identical cat that walked previous one other one in all his path cams on Oct. 9. He says that digicam was set close to a bait web site roughly a mile from the digicam that captured the movies. Denise Peterson, who used to stay in Michigan and has since based Utah Mountain Lion Conservation, agrees. She reached out to Schaefer to congratulate him on what she known as the “dream shot” and stated that, judging from the cat’s head dimension, she’s assured the massive cat is a male.

One other one in all Schaefer’s path cameras captured this picture in October. He thinks this is identical cat that was caught on video in December. Photograph courtesy of Eli Schaefer

This is able to additionally assist the DNR’s predominant theories relating to mountain lions within the state. Thus far, wildlife biologists haven’t discovered proof of a breeding inhabitants there and so they’ve solely been capable of affirm sightings of male cougars, in line with MLive.com. They suppose these youthful males are touring into the state from locations just like the Dakotas as they’re pushed out of those territories by older toms.

Though mountain lions are native to Michigan, they had been extirpated within the early 1900s and are presently listed as endangered within the state. The DNR has been monitoring cougar sightings in recent times, nevertheless, with a present tally of 106 confirmed sightings since 2008.

Schaefer says he’d reached out to the Michigan DNR in October to share his path cam picture, however that he hadn’t heard again till earlier this week, when DNR biologist Brian Roell messaged him in regards to the video clips. Roell plans to return to the woods with Schaefer Tuesday to confirm the sightings and search for extra cougar signal.

The wildlife biologist additionally instructed MLive.com that it’s the primary time he’s ever seen footage like this from Michigan. He known as the possibilities of this kind of seize “actually distant.”

“I simply thought it was actually neat as a result of biologically, we all know they’re killing deer,” Roell stated. “There’s no new perception or something like that.”

Learn Subsequent: Wisconsin Bowhunter Kills Cougar in Self Protection: “I Felt Just like the Solely Choice I Had Was to Shoot”

It’s actually not information to Schaefer, both. The hunter tells Out of doors Life that in November 2021, he was deer looking in the identical space when he got here throughout a giant cat’s paw print within the snow close to a blood path. Pondering it was a big bobcat, he adopted the tracks roughly two miles and stumbled on a deer carcass that was already buried. He explains that this cache would have been proper between the place the October picture and the December movies had been captured.

“So, seeing that video and considering again on what I’d seen again then, it needed to have been the very same factor: A giant cat leaping on a deer and pinning it there, after which ultimately dragging it again to bury,” Shaeffer says. “I can’t ensure if it was a giant bobcat or a cougar or what. All I’ve is that large paw print and the story to go along with it.”