FINLAND, Minnesota — A Minnesota-based photographer has captured extraordinary images of a cougar in the hills overlooking the north shore of Lake Superior.
Ryan Pennesi, who lives near the small community of Finland, was caught completely offguard when he visited the remote site to check his trail camera in Lake County late last month.
He was expecting to see images of a bobcat, a bear, or possibly some other animal.
"I had the camera set up where I knew there was bobcat activity, up on the side of this forested slope with big boulders. A lot of times, the cats will aggregate at the base and will scent-mark on the rocks," Pennesi explained.
Over the past year, he said, he'd already recorded a few individual bobcats passing through the site, which is about three kilometres from Lake Superior.
This time, upon checking the camera, Pennesi did find images of a bobcat going in and out of the cave, but also another sequence with a much larger cat.
"I was very surprised to see the cougar show up, more than three times its size. It was unmistakable, with that long tail," he told Tbnewswatch in an interview Monday.
His initial reaction, Pennesi said, was to look over his shoulder.
"I was thinking, right away, 'where is this thing?', but then I saw that it was several days prior that it had been caught on camera."
Pennesi said he tucked the memory card securely in his pocket to make sure he got the pictures home safely without losing them.
He then forwarded them to state wildlife officials.
Nancy Hansen, a wildlife manager with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, said there's no doubt the cat is a cougar, and that the habitat shown in the photo matches that part of the state's Arrowhead region.
"We get a lot of pictures that are horrible. Usually it's something grainy, and blurry, or black and white, and it's a really bad photo of a bobcat, and somebody wants to know if it's a cougar," Hansen said.
By contrast, she described Pennesi's photos as "just beautiful, high-resolution, crystal-clear images. There's no question what he got on camera."
Experts believe the animal is likely a young male that wandered out of the species' normal home territory in a state farther west.
Pennesi said the last previous verified sighting of a cougar in northeastern Minnesota occurred four years ago.
State wildlife officials have asked him not to disclose the precise location of his recent discovery.
Hansen said that's for the protection of the animal as well as the public.
In 2017, the remains of a cougar were discovered near the Boreal Road west of Thunder Bay.
Tissue samples showed there was a 95 per cent probability the animal was most closely related to cougars inhabiting an area of the U.S. that includes the Black Hills of South Dakota.
