Minneapolis cougar’s history details a lonely journey striking out for a mate

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The popular Minneapolis cougar will be the subject of scientific studies in death as he was in life.

His lonely ending wrapped up a remarkable journey — one that might’ve made this mountain lion one of a kind. The cougar traveled more than 500 miles to get to Minneapolis.

He was two years old, so he left his mother looking for love, but unfortunately for him, his travels took him to places where he was unlikely to find a mate. The same cougar seen on security camera video in Lowry Hill was known to game wardens in Nebraska.

"This mountain lion came from our population in northwestern Nebraska," said Sam Wilson of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Researchers there try to track down their local cougar population to count them and monitor their movements.

They put GPS collars on captured adults, and they found the Minneapolis cougar near Pine Ridge in 2021 because they had been watching his mother.

"We could see her natal den, because she kept going back to the same spot each day over about a month," Wilson said.

But like humans, adolescent cougars leave their mother’s home looking for their own space and a family of their own. A study of cougars in the Black Hills found the average female goes about 30 miles away from its mother. Males usually went about 170 miles.

If they head west, they’re likely to find more cougars and a new home. But North American settlers wiped out most of the cougar populations to the north and east.

"There are not reproducing populations there and so they unfortunately can't find a mate and just keep walking," Wilson said. "And that's how you end up with an animal like this one that walked, you know, probably more than 500 miles to get from western Nebraska up to Minneapolis."

This cougar may have traveled farther than any others known to researchers in Nebraska. But another 2-year-old male made it from the north central part of the state to Springfield, Illinois, last year.

He had a GPS tracker, so he was captured and now lives at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Indiana.

The center's director tells FOX 9 the cat is now named Capone, and he's adjusting well to life in captivity.

But he's a rare happy ending for an eastward-traveling cougar.

The wild cats typically use river systems as travel corridors because they’re wooded and often have deer, but cities also sprout up along rivers.

"They don't have a map, and they don't know how to get out of the city," Wilson said.

Nebraska's wardens don't name the cougars they tag, so the animal had a number but no name.

He was part of a litter of two, but wardens say his mother has passed away, and they haven't made contact with his sister since tagging her.