The Department of Natural Resources believes a cougar may have left a series of animal tracks near a livestock pen east of Durand.

A farmer reported seeing the tracks early Wednesday in rainy soil. The DNR will try to monitor the animal if it's found. It wants to know if the animal is wild. Right now, the agency doesn't have plans to capture it.
The DNR wants people to keep an eye out for the animal because it would like to gather more information on it.

Kris Belling, a DNR wildlife supervisor, says "the tracks could lead us to other evidence like scat, hair samples, or things like that could actually get us DNA and that's what we'd be able to use to confirm number one, if it's a cougar or not, number two, information like where the likely origin was or is it something that was in captivity."

If you find other tracks, you should report it as outlined on the DNR’s cougar page. Mountain lions are listed as protected wild animals in Wisconsin. That means you'd have to have a DNR permit to kill one. If a cougar kills pets or livestock, the DNR can remove it from the wild.