First footage ever of a cougar with kittens in Minnesota

Without a doubt, our best trail camera capture yet: the first documented observation of a cougar with kittens in Minnesota in modern history. The footage, which was captured on March 25, shows a cougar with 3 large kittens while they feed on a deer they killed just south of Voyageurs National Park. We captured this surreal footage because we started a study to understand the survival and mortality patterns of deer in our area this winter. As part of that work, we GPS-collared several deer in the area in January. In late March, we received a mortality signal from a GPS-collared deer and found the carcass buried under a pile of leaves on a hillside—a tell tale sign of feline predation. We suspected it was likely a bobcat but thought, just possibly, it could be a cougar. So we put up two trail cameras on the cached deer carcass and 4 hours later, two cougar kittens returned to the kill. The entire family showed up that evening and spent hours in front of our cameras. In total, we…