Last week’s Driftless Thursday post was “Of Mice and Cats.” As it happens, I was browsing Facebook with my coffee this morning and an alert from the nearest town’s community page said a cougar had been spotted on the north side of town.

Cougar? We see a bobcat or two on our property about once a year. Should I be watching out for cougars too?

As it turns out, maybe. According to Wisconsin’s DNR page on the matter, there are no known breeding cougar populations in the state, though they are native to the area. I learned a new word today, “extirpated,” which is basically local extinction. The only cougars sighted in Wisconsin (about 15-20 sightings are verified by the DNR annually) are transient individuals dispersing from established populations elsewhere.

Still, good to know. Male cougars can reach 160 lbs and I don’t need to see one up close. Bobcats, on the other hand, top out around 40 lbs and the ones we’ve seen seem smaller than that. I’ve only managed a couple pictures of bobcats in five years here, as they tend to hunt at dawn and dusk. (There’s another big word for this too: Bobcats are “crepuscular.”)

I wouldn’t necessarily want to have my cats outside (for supervised play, they are indoor cats) when a bobcat is around, but I outweigh a bobcat by a lot and feel confident my presence alone would keep one at bay unless it’s truly desperate. A cougar would be terrifying, and Mighty Jenga (our 10 lb diluted tortie) has delusions of grandeur. I’ve seen her play-charge a 200 lb. deer.